


Fuchsprellen

by OakwoodOuroboros



Category: In a Heartbeat (Animated Short)
Genre: Alternate Universe - British, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Angst, Blood, Discrimination, Drama, Hurt/Comfort, I don't think I've ever written something as angsty as this, Injury, Internalized Homophobia, Jonathan acts like a detective, Kidnapping, M/M, Mentions of self-harm, Psychological Horror, Punk Sherwin, Romance, Scars, Stalking, Thriller, apart for a 16th century board game maybe, brief mention of underage, idk that tag just seemed relevant, mentions of abuse, mentions of bullying, mentions of transphobia, warnings, 月下獣
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-12
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-11-30 13:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 25,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11464329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OakwoodOuroboros/pseuds/OakwoodOuroboros
Summary: Fuchsprellen: Otherwise known as fox tossing, a competitive sport that involves throwing live foxes high in the air using slings. The outcome is generally fatal for the foxes, but the game presents risks for the participants as well, the terrified animals sometimes turning on them and attacking them (there has also been one recorded case where a man treating a fox cruelly was later found dead in his cellar, one of the fox's very close friends having taken it upon themselves to exact revenge. This however happened under very particular circumstances that will now be recorded here).





	Fuchsprellen

**Author's Note:**

> Whoops, my fingers slipped ;)
> 
> To make this clear, this is a British AU, so it is written without Americanisations such as “realize”. Plus, other things differ like the fact that what you might know as “soccer” is “football” in this fic. Drinking tea is normal, so are school uniforms, houses are made of brick and follow that layout (you know, that one. Just, go and watch an episode of Doctor Who or something), and Jonathan is of mixed Indian descent rather than Latino. Why? Because headcanons! And I love British AUs, it’s sometimes nice to take a break from having to check that I haven’t used expressions that most of my audience doesn’t understand. :P
> 
> I thank Wikipedia for the description of fox tossing in the summary.
> 
> Warnings in tags. If you have triggers, please read them before you start reading this story.
> 
> Edit: I debated with myself for days on end about whether I should just plain delete this fic or not. The characters are wildly OOC, the whole thing is in shambles... But in the end friends convinced me not to. Please keep in mind that this may not read like an iahb fic (even though iahb is actually pretty open to interpretation, as it's only 4 minutes long and lacks dialog, but yeah... I even manage to make characters like that OOC. Just to show how bad I am at characterisation).

There was something about Sherwin Payne that disagreed with a lot of people. To all the people attending the school, he was one of the tough kids, a punk. Jonathan frowned as he along with his group of “friends” (other cigarette-smoking, rule-breaking kids) passed barely a few feet away from him, the late afternoon sun elongating their shadows and cutting off the little light that still remained for him to read his book by. It was an inconvenience, nothing more, but it was enough to make him look up for an instant.

His eyes flicked over the different group members, none of them catching his attention until they landed on the youngest, Sherwin, who happened to also be a classmate of his. It just so happened that he had been looking at him at the precise moment that he had been observing the various punks, and it was by pure chance that their gazes locked for a second maybe, but of course neither of them kept visual contact up for longer than necessary. Soon the light wasn’t obstructed any more and he could continue reading unhindered, but once Jonathan did he realised he had gone over the same sentence several times long after the loud group had disappeared for their evening wrongdoings.

It’s just… that look wasn’t the usual vicious one that another delinquent kid would retaliate with if he were to lock eyes with them. No, Sherwin had looked away nervously, and in the instant he had been able to see into those eyes, there had been something completely unexpected there, something that had caused Jonathan to mentally jolt, something so innately wrong… It was pleading, a look that begged for protection, but with also something else underlaying it, something that looked suspiciously like craving (but for what, he couldn’t tell).

Jonathan sighed, looking up to the half-moon burning brightly in the sky, announcing a clear but cold night. Once again, his heart of gold was going to get the better of him.

He just didn’t know how much this would prove to be true.

* * *

The next day, everyone was present in class, to the teacher’s great surprise as for once he managed to tick the little box next to every single one of his student’s names on his list before starting his lesson. Jonathan quickly fished his books and pencilcase out of his bag as the drone and sound of people scribbling on paper soon filled the room, joining the flow at first before taking in the information on autopilot as he usually did, letting the conscious part of his brain wander wherever it may please. It just so happened that today it decided not to focus on things such as strategies for the upcoming cricket match or predicting the rest of the plot of the book he was currently reading, but rather replayed the scene which had taken place yesterday, then pulling up all the information that he could about the redhead in question. He couldn’t help it. It’s how his brain worked; he liked to make sense of things.

Sherwin was a person that most people tended to avoid, and even when people had tried to befriend him in the past, such as Jessica, they had found themselves pushed aside. Not rudely, but he simply evaded any form of contact or communication with them. Another thing that was worthy of note was that the boy’s basically mute. The only times he really spoke were when he answered role call. The rest of the time he would spend brooding, hanging out with people who dressed the same as he did but without participating in their loud-mouthing. Even though people assumed that he was a problem child of sorts, Jonathan himself had never seen with his own two eyes anything to support that claim. He was going to have some research to do.

The lesson ended with no notable incidents apart from a girl tripping over her chair when Jonathan asked her to move her bag so he could get to the door. The problem was that he needed to get out of the classroom quickly, lest the huge clique of people who usually formed around him swarmed and hindered him in his quest for knowledge (and nosiness, he had to admit).

He quickly walked over to the administration wing of the building, and after passing countless doors and signs encouraging healthy eating and alerting against child abuse (this couldn’t be a reason to Sherwin’s withdrawal, could it?), he stopped in front of the one he had been aiming for. He knocked and waited for the ‘come in’ that was soon to be heard, and entered the cluttered workspace.

“Why hello there, Jonathan! What brings you here?” asked the secretary, taking out the box of biscuits that she secretly kept under her desk.

“Hello Ingrid,” the boy answered back with a smile he knew charming. “I’m a little concerned about one of my classmates and I was wondering whether you’ve got a written record of past issues with him.”

“Well, I’m not really allowed to show them to you...”

Jonathan leaned forward and put his elbows on the table, encroaching still a little more on her personal space when he set his chin on his folded hands, keeping up the smile.

“But I guess I can make an exception! Do you want some tea? I’ve got a pot brewing, if you wish.”

“Yes please,” he answered sweetly. That had been easier than expected, he reflected, letting the smile slip a bit when the woman turned her back on him. They had known each other for a long time, but still…

“May I ask who you are so concerned with all of a sudden?”

“Oh, a certain Sherwin Payne. He’s in the same class as me.”

“That’s nice, but he isn’t exactly the most… interesting of people in this school. I mean… I’ll be honest and say that I’m not sure whether it’s a good idea for you two to mix.”

She turned back his way with twin cups of the steaming brew, the little tag of the teabag hanging over the brim of each of them. Jonathan’s gut clenched slightly at her comment, but instead of voicing his opinion he took his mug without a complaint and a thankful smile.

“Sugar’s in the pot, but I’m sorry, I don’t have any milk.”

“No, that’s fine. I was contacted by his family; they’d heard of me and asked me to tutor him because his grades are slipping,” he answered without hesitating, the lie coming simple and easy to him. “I just wanted to know who I was up against. No one really knows him and...”

He leaned in as before, the woman doing so as well when he whispered the next part in a lower register.

“I would prefer to know what I’m stepping into, if you know what I mean.”

She may or may not have, but the vague message got across and she nodded understandingly.

“If that’s the case, I’ll gladly let you read through his file as much as you want. Don’t you do karate? Shouldn’t that do the trick if ever he gets… out of hand?”

“Karate can’t do much against flick knives.”

“True. Here it is, just take care of it and don’t tell anyone that I let you see it, all right?”

“You know I wouldn’t rat on my favourite person in the whole admin block, do you?” he teased, taking the disappointingly thin file and flipping it open. He scanned it quickly, surprised to see that apart from numerous unjustified days off school, there was nothing much of note. Something from years back about climbing trees was the only real felony, not even smoking was mentioned.

The second time he looked through it, he was more careful, and was rewarded with more details. First of all, there was a sheet of paper for the first year that was different from the rest. The reason behind that, he soon observed, was that it was from a different school altogether, one situated on the other side of the country. A quick look at the address written underneath the other information was enough to prove that the redhead’s family had indeed moved out. The parent’s information remained the same though, nothing akin to a separation or divorce ever being mentioned in the paper. However apart from this, the only thing that changed from year to year were the photographs.

In the one that he had from the other school, the young eleven-year-old staring back at him looked happy and healthy, hair tousled and sitting like a thick curly cushion on his head. However, the next photograph showed how much he had changed in the short span of a year: the smile had been dropped and hair shaved on both sides of the head and styled into a Mohawk. His face was ghastly thin as mirrored by its pallor, and his eyes sunken and not looking directly at the camera lenses, but afraid rather than defiant. He seemed to have improved over the years, but never had never regained the same soft appearance he had when he was younger.

Next, he looked at the absences in more detail, frowning as the dates repeated themselves in a close pattern.

“Ingrid, can I borrow your calculator for a second?”

“Go ahead. Did you find something interesting?”

“Maybe,” he answered vaguely, tapping the numbers in, frowning at the screen, before pressing clear and starting over with a different sequence. The answer was exactly the same.

Jonathan glanced a last time at the file for the first year, seeing no reported unjustified absences, and just to make sure skimmed over the papers yet again for any reported conflicts with the parents, but he saw none. Sighing, he set the file down before pushing it across the surface of the desk back to the secretary, who had just about finished her tea.

“Thank you, this was really helpful.”

“Is that true or are you just saying that to not make me feel too guilty about revealing confidential information?” she said jokingly, finishing her tea in a final sip.

“No, it really was a lot of help. If it can help you feel less worried, I’ll just say that the chances of me getting stabbed or hurt in any way are pretty low.”

“That’s good to hear. Be careful though, if you’re tutoring off school grounds, you’ll have to be extra careful. You never know what can happen. Anyway, you should better get going, the bell’s going to ring soon.”

“You’re right! Thanks again, I’ll come around again sooner or later to tell you how it’s been.”

“Fair enough, have a good day Jonathan,” she answered before the door closed on the small, cluttered office.

As soon as the pleasantries were over, Jonathan dropped his sociable attitude and let his mind whir behind his thinking face once more. There was a clear pattern to Sherwin’s absences, all of them lasting between five days and a little over a week and about three weeks apart each. People who skipped school just to skip didn’t usually have such tight schedules, and they didn’t usually skip for such long periods of time either...

Therefore, three alternatives came to mind: either he was chronically ill and needed regular treatment, or a family member was ill and he only had certain periods of time dedicated to visiting them, or… menstruation?

They were all logical explanations, and somehow confirmed by the various info that he had found in the file, but there was something that didn’t quite make sense with both the theories in relation to illness… If Sherwin was sick, it would have been something mentioned in the file, surely, because the school nurse would have to be informed of it in order to take appropriate action if something happened to him. Also, there was little to no sense in moving out to a smaller town with an inferior hospital service than in the vast city that he had originally come from. As for the sick family member… even if they had to travel all the way back to the place they used to live, it wouldn’t take six days to do so, even if they stayed there for a few days at a time. And why do so every single month? No, the theory that made the most sense was definitely the last one, the one that would have seemed the most unlikely at first.

It all fell neatly into place, a sort of satisfaction at having cracked the case relaxing him and making Jonathan’s walk and posture more confident. From what he could tell, Sherwin had entered middle school confidently, but had been subjected to bullying in his home-town, so they and their family had moved to a place where they were unknown, not mentioning the fact that they (Jonathan didn’t want to risk using the wrong pronouns. He’d rather ask the redhead in person which he preferred) were biologically female in the file so that the information didn’t spread. Sherwin would have then made an effort to make themself unapproachable by joining a notoriously aggressive, and somewhat untouchable group of people.

Of course, this wasn’t the only possible scenario, but it was the one that ultimately made the most sense to him. He felt confident that he could confront Sherwin with it as soon as he got a chance to speak to him. They may not want his help, but that pleading look in their eyes had not been imagined. Sherwin was distressed, and Jonathan was determined to help them any way he could, even if he were just to be the ear to receive their words.

* * *

It was only the next Monday that he finally got his chance to speak to the redhead. Jonathan had been thinking all weekend about maybe going over to his classmate’s house with some sort of made-up story about forgotten homework or something of the likes, but every time he had to turn down the compulsion. It would be incredibly impolite and also very creepy, to say the least. Nevertheless, as the days went by, he started to realise that it was going to be more difficult than he had first thought to get close to them. Years of practice had made Sherwin an incredibly skilled person when it came to evading other people’s attention and hiding away behind goons, and even Jonathan, despite his pitch-perfect athletic and observation skills, was no match and could not for the life of him corner them in any break time.

This didn’t go unnoticed from his normal group of followers, and he was swarmed with concern as to his health and work charge from both students as well as teachers. Every time he put on the same face and smile, bringing up the excuse that he had had a little fever recently and it was just clearing up, which seemed to satisfy most people. By the time the end of the first day of the new week came around though, he wasn’t sure whether he would be able to contain his frustration any longer. Sherwin was just in front of him and they were walking nearly side-by-side in the crowded corridors, but the droves of baseball players surrounding him and trying to discuss strategy with him were driving him nuts, the conversation pushing him away in mind if not physically the person he so wished to speak with.

They passed through the front door onto the lawn, students slowly peeling off and going their separate ways to playing fields or home. The troublemaker’s group remained compact and boisterous even after they passed the school gates, a place where even Jonathan’s friends relented and said their goodbyes in order to make their own ways back home.

That was where he made his snap decision and started following the group of badly-dressed kids. He weaved between parked cars of parents waiting to pick up their children, trying not to lose sight of the few mops of outreageously styled hair that served as a beacon to the punks’ presence. It didn’t take long for them to get to a less crowded street, forcing Jonathan to increase the distance between himself and his target in order to not get caught following them. They gradually got louder and louder though as they walked away from the school, smoke billowing around then down the street as a few lit up. Sherwin remained relatively silent but still spoke when addressed, although the replies were a little more earnest than they would have probably been if they were closer to the school.

The group had been wandering for a while now, the natural light getting dimmer as the afternoon went on. It was about the time that Jonathan would have left the grounds and headed back home (on Mondays, he didn’t have much to do apart from read, and he preferred to do so under a nice tree in the well-maintained school park rather at home), and they had strolled into a residential area, mostly composed of small red-brick houses in various states of disrepair. Jonathan glanced at the street sign and did a double-take, checking that his eyes hadn’t deceived him when he read ‘Bravo Street”, the very one he had read in Sherwin’s files. They lived here, and they were about to go back home without giving him a chance to accomplish his project.

As if hearing his unspoken prayer, the rest of the punks waved and bro-hugged their goodbyes before setting off. They just had to round the corner of the street before Sherwin got to their front gate, and maybe that he would have a potential window of opportunity in which he could just…

There, they were gone. As nonchalantly as possible, Jonathan walked briskly along the pavement, his footsteps the only sound in the street now that the other teenagers were gone.

“Hey, Sherwin!” he said as he got closer, this having the wanted effect of letting the other teen aware of his presence, but they quickly dropped their head back to the lock with which they were fiddling, having trouble pulling the bolt back with their trembling hands.

“Can we speak for a second? I’ve got something to...”

“No,” the redhead replied between clenched teeth, still battling with the lock, getting more and more nervous the closer Jonathan got to them. “G-go away!”

“Sherwin, I just want to help you. What’s going on?”

“I said GO AWAY!”

Jonathan took a step back when they yelled, and a couple more when he saw the tears brimming in their eyes, just a drop away from spilling over. Sherwin looked like a cornered animal, wild and dangerous if provoked any further. The panic in their features soon softened though, leaving shock in its place. Their eyes dropped to the ground and the wetness eased out of them as they blinked, now still hands resting at their sides.

“I’m sorry,” they whispered. “I… I didn’t mean to shout.”

Jonathan took in a breath of air, steeling himself. It was now or never.

“That’s ok. It’s my fault, I’m sorry to have insisted so much, I shouldn’t have. Just, please tell me if there’s anything I can do for you.”

The boy turned on his heels and walked briskly away, deciding that imposing his presence any longer would be too much. He had done all that he could now; he couldn’t help if Sherwin wasn’t ready to help themself.

“Wait,” he heard between two slaps of his shoes against the pavement, and it was a miracle that he caught the whispered word at all, it was spoken in such a low volume. He stopped instantly and turned to see the redhead walking his way, hands shoved deep into the pockets of their ripped jeans. They stopped a few feet before him, silent for a few seconds before mumbling:

“N-ot here, not now, b-but maybe at the park tomorrow, after classes.” They raised their head, worry, yet also a little hope reflecting in their expression.

“That sounds fine to me. See you there, then.”

“See you there,” they replied, and in a second they were in front of their gate again, opening the lock on the first try this time and stepping up to the front door. Jonathan had to shake himself, snapping out of his stupor and walking away in the opposite direction, and before he knew it he was running. This wasn’t his usual run though, a precise basketball run or a controlled track one, but rather a head-down, full on sprint that had him hurtling through the whole neighbourhood as fast as his feet could carry him. He nearly got run over several times when he crossed a street, and every time the screech of the tires would make him lose his thoughts for a split-second, but nothing more.

Jonathan was elated, and he didn’t understand why. There were bubbles in his stomach that just made him want to bounce around and laugh, but there was no tangible reason that could explain why this was happening to him. Well yes, there was something, he thought as he at last got to his own street and was forced to double over to get his breath back; but there still remained the fact that he had helped people before in similar ways, taken them under his wing, and it of course it would never fail to give him a kick, but this time things were different. He hadn’t actively helped Sherwin in any way yet, only just given himself the opportunity to maybe help them. He wasn’t supposed to be reacting in this fashion. There was something in his subconscious acting up on him, and for the world him he could not figure out what.

When he had composed himself properly he walked over to his front door, checking his hair in one of the windows before stepping in.

“I’m home!”

There was a distant reply from somewhere deep in the house, but no one came out to greet him more actively than that. The kitchen was his first stop, but just to get a glass of water and check the fridge door for any chores on the to-do list before going upstairs to his room.

It was just as cluttered as usual, but organised nonetheless. Jonathan simply had to relocate the clean laundry that he hadn’t had time to put away that morning onto one of the still-clear spaces of one of his tables before lying down in bed, exhaustion taking over after the long run, not caring that he was fully clothed and still wearing his shoes. For maybe half an hour, he stayed motionless and simply stared at the white ceiling above him, thinking through the day and how he would be able to get around tomorrow, before sinking into a deep slumber.

* * *

Jonathan woke up the next morning with a crick in his neck and the uncomfortable sensation of dirtiness that you could get from sleeping in the same clothes as the ones that you’ve worn the day before. Slowly, while the pain faded little by little as he left his awkward sleeping position, the memories of the day before came back to him. Good, at least now he had a time and place arranged to at least establish some sort of communication with Sherwin. Then, he was hit with the fact that for the first time in ages he had not done his homework, or in fact any studying at all the night before.

This was the thing that finally got him shooting out of bed and immediately to his desk, pulling out book after book and looking through his agenda, furiously trying to find the page where he had written down the homework to be done for today. Fortunately for him, there wasn’t as much as he had initially thought, but he was going to have to cut back on the at-home studies he was used to doing every evening before going to sleep. He finished everything off with enough time left over for him to take a quick shower, pack his bag before going downstairs to eat breakfast with his parents.

As usual, the table was groaning under the weight of fresh fruit and just-out-of-the-oven small morning pastries and breads. The smell of coffee hit him like a hammer and Jonathan yet again regretted that he wasn’t allowed to partake in the beverage yet (“When you’re sixteen!” his mother had told him on numerous occasions). The person responsible for putting the restriction on his morning drinks was currently sitting at the table, lifting her head up and smiling at her son as he entered the room.

“Good morning, Jonathan,” she started, before she realised something and her brow furrowed. She set the tablet she had been reading the news off of aside and got up from her seat.

“What did I tell you about combing your hair that way?” she said as she now stood right in front of him, forcing the boy to look up to her towering form. She bent down to his level and started messing with his fringe, mumbling under her breath as she did. After a few seconds, she pulled a comb out of her pocket and tamed whatever stray hair didn’t agree with her, her son letting her do so with practised patience. She finally nodded, satisfied, before straightening up to her full six feet five inches and regaining her chair.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t check when I got out of the shower,” Jonathan said, taking his place at the table and buttering a piece of toast. “Good morning, by the way.”

She smiled at him from across the table, not taking back her tablet but rather deciding to converse. “That’s fine. Tell me, what was all that about last night then? I tried calling you down, but you were knocked out. When your father went up to get you he saw that you were sleeping like a log and decided not to disturb you. Long day yesterday?”

“I guess you can say that,” he answered, half aware that he was walking on thin ice but concentrating nevertheless on the food in front of him. Skipping a meal had awakened his appetite more than he had expected it to, and he was now on his third piece of toast. “I did a bit more running around than usual on a Monday, that’s all.”

“Right. Something to do with that big cricket match planned for the end of the month?” she asked off-handedly, although Jonathan could tell that she wished to pry further. He had inherited his silk wording and secretive streak off her after all, and she was to this day one of the rare people that could read him like an open book.

“Mmm… no.”

“Basketball, then.”

“Nope.”

“Football?”

“Still not.”

“Literature club?”

That got him to lift his head from his plate and smile. “I don’t think so.”

She took a sip of her coffee while her son did the same with his own mug of much weaker tea.

“I just felt like going for a sprint. Nothing to worry about."

“Apart for the fact that you did so in your school uniform, apparently. Good think one of your spares was dry, and I think those shoes are scuffed beyond what any polish can repair, I’m afraid.”

“I’ll get another pair and give these to the charity shop then,” Jonathan sighed, hoping she would change the subject soon. There was that hidden insidiousness that still underlay her words, with also that obsession with appearance that became exasperating at times like these. They weren’t _that_ badly scuffed.

That was the moment his Dad decided to walk into the room. Balding and a good head shorter than his wife, he didn’t have the imposing presence she had when she entered the room, but her attention was diverted immediately and her smile sweetened to the point of becoming sickly.

“Thank you for the lovely breakfast darling,” she said while bending back as far as she could in her chair to look at him.

“It’s nothing. I thought Jonathan might have wanted more to eat after having skipped dinner. How are you holding up, Jon?”

“Fine, Dad. Thanks for the meal.”

“You’re welcome. So, why were you snoring the house down so early yesterday then?”

“He won’t say, but I’m putting my money on emotional unrest and possible romantic involvement,” Jonathan’s mother answered in his stead.

“Mum!”

“She’s just teasing, don’t worry about it Jon,” his father tried to placate him, but he said so with a twinkle in his eyes and a mischievous smile on his face that countered the effect of his words.

Both his parents then started to whisper to each other, stealing kisses when they thought that Jonathan wasn’t looking. If he was to tell the truth, it didn’t embarrass him as much as it should have; as long as he had known, his parents had always been hopelessly in love with each other. It wasn’t as common as he thought it was, he had learned in time, but the facts were that after over fifteen years of being together they still regularly drowned in each other’s eyes even in the presence of others. It was nice and somewhat reassuring when he helped comfort the distraught kids that sometimes came to him with their tales of divorces and childhood broken, but at others it could be a little annoying. Today though, he was happy that their attention was elsewhere, and he wolfed down the rest his meal, grabbed a lunch box on the way out and a pocketful of apples, then set off for school.

One of the fruit was immediately brought out and spun like the basketballs he was so used to playing with, the part of concentration he dedicated to the repetitive motion helping him focus on his other thoughts.

So, at the park after class then. He had seen the gang hang out under the old mulberry once or twice, but the chances were that Sherwin wouldn’t wait for him there. Somewhere less frequented, maybe, like along the hedges on the west side, as far away as the pond and its collection of duck-feeding families as they could get (that tree really is such a nice spot though)...

This pondering, even though it wasn’t getting him anywhere as far as solving the mystery was concerned, occupied him for the length of the walk to the school. He didn’t even think of pulling out his book as he got closer to the building as his routine dictated, just walking through the corridors with a now half-eaten apple and a headful of possible meeting places. It was the bell that finally snapped him out of it, the masses of students that usually enjoyed being in his presence chatting around him but none of them daring to attract his attention when he was so deep in his daydream.

Needless to say, the day went by very slowly indeed. Maths had always been a little repetitive (why does the teacher have to explain everything twice then follow up with a bunch of exercises?), but today things were particularly boring and just dragged on for what felt like _days_. When finally the bell announcing lunch break rang, he dashed out of the classroom, yet again trying to avoid the people that would without doubt try and swarm him if he were to remain still for over a second. Although he did actually appreciate their company under normal circumstances and engaged without problem into easy conversation with them, today was a day for trepidation, thoughts going a hundred miles faster than what social interaction would permit.

He caught sight of Sherwin twice during lunch break, both of which times they were walking around with their punk friends. Their gazes did cross once though, fleetingly, before the redhead looked quickly away, seemingly not having expected the brief interaction.

Again, the few hours that were left over went past like tar in an hourglass, and even once they were over Jonathan still had to go to the gymnasium to give their team’s coach an excuse as to why he couldn’t be there for today’s training session. The dentist appointment one was bought fairly easily, not even having to give the adult the paper he had forged just in case (this was really getting out of hand if he resorted to doing such a thing to get out of another commitment. It just made him realise how much Sherwin’s case was obsessing him, bringing back yesterday’s confusing memories and his own unbidden reactions).

Anyway, in the end he found himself free to go to his rendezvous point without problem, which was more or less deserted as a light drizzle was coming down, only the most seasoned dog walkers accompanying their canine friends’ walk along the paths and muddy lawns. Jonathan thought back to his morning musings and decided that there was no harm in waiting next to the gate. He had a clear view down both sides of the street and could easily get away if someone he knew happened to come down the road.

He couldn’t bring out his book in this weather, therefore he was condemned to fidgeting until the person he was waiting for appeared in the distance. The bright crest was unmistakable even from where he was standing, and so was the nervous expression on the teen’s face, the twitchy left-and-right movement of their head showing their unease better than any words could translate. Sherwin was afraid that they were being followed, but by whom, Jonathan could only be left to guess.

As soon as they got close enough to the gate, he raised a hand and waved in greeting to attract their attention, but it didn’t have the effect he had been expecting. The redhead immediately took a step backwards, nearly stumbling and falling on the rain-wet pavement. Jonathan was about to shoot forward to help him, but luckily Sherwin managed to regain their balance and returned the wave awkwardly, an attempt at a smile pulling their mouth into a grimace.

“Sorry about that! I didn’t mean to scare you,” Jonathan apologised once Sherwin got close enough to hear him above the rapidly intensifying rain.

“I-it’s fine. Maybe we should not do this today, the weather’s g-getting pretty bad and...”

“Sherwin,” he interrupted. “You’re the one who decided to do this today. I understand that whatever you’re going to talk about is likely to make you uncomfortable, but I can promise that I won’t repeat anything. I’m not a gossip, everyone knows that. Please, you… You’ve been through a lot, and I want to help you any way I can.”

They shuffled around a little more, not looking at Jonathan at all but rather at their feet, old shoes scuffed beyond anything his own mother would ever let into the house. After a few seconds, they relented with a sigh. “F-fine. I don’t have a hood though, c-can we go somewhere with a little more shelter?”

Indeed, nothing protected their exposed head, the Mohawk falling a little pityingly under the weight of the water that drenched it and plastering the smaller spikes to their otherwise bald head. Jonathan mentally kicked himself for not having noticed this earlier, but he could hardly do anything to remedy this now. He nodded, and they set off towards the small shed that housed the toilets, an overhanging bit of roof covering the sinks a little off to the side. Sherwin leant their back against the one wooden wall, and Jonathan couldn’t help but note that his classmate instinctively protected their blind spots.

“Hey, are you all right?” he asked. The redhead was shivering more intensely now that they were out of the rain, a drop hanging off the tip of their nose and jacket dark from humidity. He himself was fine, the waterproof he had brought with him having protected him for the most part from the downpour.

“Yes, well… I-I’ve had worse, don’t worry.”

“I don’t want you to get sick, I’m the one who insisted on dragging you out here. Have my coat,” Jonathan said, shrugging off the heavy garment and handing it over to Sherwin. They cringed away from it, shaking their head and raising hands in front of their chest to turn down the offer.

“Please take it, just, do it to make me happy. I’ll feel awful if you have to spend more time off than you do already.”

Their gazes crossed and locked for a rare instant, and in that moment Jonathan saw there the emotions he had last week, but softened somewhat by gratefulness. However, he was quickly informed that it wasn’t something Sherwin had revealed of his full will, because the next instant they evaded his gaze again, but at least took the coat off him and pulled it on. They flicked the collar up and burrowed into it, either trying to retain more body heat or isolating themself as they could from the upcoming conversation.

“Right, so… First of all, I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but which pronouns should I use with you?” Jonathan was the first to ask after several minutes of slightly uncomfortable silence.

This got the redhead to look up sharply, confusion written all over their face. Interesting. Once they were alone with someone they snapped out of their constant gloomy state and were as easy to read as an open book. “I-I’m not sure what you mean by that.”

The other teen sighed, trying to convince himself that this will only be embarrassing if he let it become so. “Well… You present as male, I think. From what I can tell from your appearance, you’re a boy, but I’ve had some… ah, let’s say some conflicting information, so I thought that it would be easier to ask you whether you prefer to be referred to as a ‘she’, a ‘he’ or any other pronouns that you might prefer. That’s all.”

He looked up from where he had been staring at his feet, fearing that he would come face-to-face with that aggressiveness he expected and that kept him away from people that dressed in ripped clothes and with bits of metal in their face, but he was greeted with something completely different. Sherwin was slack-jawed, their eyes still for once and face nearly as red as their hair, slowly fading into a more subdued blush as well as a crooked smile as they recovered from the initial shock.

“Well, I-I am a boy, so ‘he’ is fine. Physically as well as in spirit, so… I would like to know where this ‘information’ came from though, th-this could get out of hand and...”

The other boy didn’t finish his sentence, the nervousness that he had displayed before coming back and making him unsure.

Instead of avoiding the subject, Jonathan decided that being completely honest was the best course of action. He told him everything he knew, the information he had been given, the theories he had formed (even the most disturbing) and the conclusions he had derived from them. He never looked away from Sherwin as he told him these, trying to show him that he was being as honest as he could, the redhead student’s expression flowing as he exposed every detail that he had at hand. Jonathan didn’t reveal anything of the weird sprint that he had had the day before though, finding it to be a little too private and somewhat off topic.

Once he finished his side of the tale, he waited for a reaction. The redhead had up to then remained completely silent, listening to his story attentively, but now that it was over Jonathan was waiting for something. A confirmation, an explanation, something that would give him a base to work on to relieve Sherwin of whatever his burden was. However, he remained silent for quite some time, sighing and scratching the hard packed ground with his toe.

“So… am I right?” Jonathan finally asked, the tension getting at him.

Sherwin chuckled dryly. “Honestly? You’re v-very, very smart, Jonathan,” he said, hiccuping somewhat and turning away from him a little when he said his name, as if it hurt to force those three syllables out for some reason. “E-everything you’ve said up to now makes perfect sense, b-but if I’m to be honest with y-you, the one theory which is c-closest to my current state is probably the one where I’ve got an incurable d-disease.”

Jonathan was confused now. So what _is_ it then? He thought, staring at Sherwin intensely.

“I d-don’t think you’ll believe me if I t-told you what the truth is,” he mumbled, then a little louder: “J-just, maybe it’s better if you f-forget about this. Go with that theory where I’m t-trans, or any other really. It doesn’t matter, I’m s-sorry for wasting your time.”

He should have seen it coming, but he had hoped at least a little that this wouldn’t happen. The taller boy caught the sleeve of his own coat as Sherwin attempted to leave with it, spinning him around effortlessly and planting his hands on both his shoulders. Sherwin squeaked in shock at being pinned down, terrified, while Jonathan kept his own stone-cold expression, even though underneath his shirt his heart was going a hundred miles an hour (why did he feel so nervous?).

“No. Sherwin, I came here for a specific reason, and that is to help you. I can’t do that if you run away without telling me what’s wrong. I know you aren’t as tough as you try and make out to be, and I think you can socialise with more people than the ones you hang out with. You’re forcing yourself into a role that you don’t seem to fit into naturally, and you cut yourself off from so many opportunities by trying to distance yourself from others. Because I was right there, wasn’t I? There’s a reason why you’re so quiet when your friends are so boisterous. You’re trying to hide behind them, aren’t you?”

Unconsciously, he had leaned in while he was giving his spiel, his words getting quieter before becoming near whispers, only audible to the two of them in the close quarters that they had established between themselves. Their noses were close to brushing when Jonathan let his hands fall from the other boy’s shoulders and he took a step back, not sure of what had just happened, exactly. His heart was in his mouth, and he felt that there was something unfinished there, but he didn’t feel up to figuring that out just yet. Nevertheless, Sherwin didn’t seem as eager to leave as he did before, caught for the moment like a deer in headlights, something like disbelief taking up the entirety of his face.

“I...”

“You can take your time, we’re not in a rush,” Jonathan tested, trying to give off an appeasing appearance and settling against one of the stainless steel sinks.

Sherwin regained his position leaning against the wall, taking a deep breath.

“I j-just want to warn you that… if I do tell you anything, I want you t-to promise that you won’t try and do something rash. It’s… It could be very dangerous, and I d-don’t want you getting hurt.”

Jonathan shook his head immediately. “No, I can’t promise you that. All I can say is that I’ll go by my own judgement. If I think that something is too dangerous to deal with, I won’t. Don’t worry about me, I can take care of myself, and you know it.”

“Well, if that’s the best I-I’m going to get from you… I g-guess I’ll have to go with that.”

“Thank you for trusting me.”

He looked to the side, sheepishly scratching at the back of his head. “W-well, you’re welcome, I guess. It m-might not last though, I d-doubt you’ll want to ever talk to me again, let alone believe me, once you’ve heard my story.”

“Well, you can’t be sure of that. You’ll just have to wait and see.”

“F-fine, well...”

“Go on, I won’t laugh at you or anything like that. I’ll listen to what you have to say before offering any judgement,” he said, trying to reassure Sherwin as much s he could.

The redhead took in a deep breath. “All right, so, th-the thing is… I-I’m a were.”

There was a beat of silence, only interrupted by the patter of raindrops on the cheap aluminium roof. Both of them were motionless, one looking at the other with anticipation written all over his features whilst the other tried to get his head around what he had just heard.

“You know… It’s all right, you’re not the only one at school who is quee...”

“That isn’t what I said!” Sherwin nearly shouted, exasperated, before checking his volume and saying much more quietly: “And p-please don’t say that word, it’s not nice.”

“Oh, sorry,” Jonathan apologised automatically, still mightily confused. “So what did you say, then? I don’t think I heard you correctly, with all this noise that the rain is making it nearly sounded like you said you’re a...”

“...were, yes. Th-that’s what I said. As in w-werewolf. B-but not exactly a w-wolf”

This… wasn’t what Jonathan was expecting. It went against everything he had ever known and beyond. Of course he had studied folklore and such, and he had even read an extremely popular vampire and werewolf-featuring series of romance novels, but it had always remained in the domain of fantasy. There was always that clear divide, and that was what made him realise that maybe Sherwin didn’t see that difference. He softened, confusion cleared from his mind, now more or less comforted in the reason behind his classmate’s odd behaviour.

“Sherwin… Are you sure?” he asked softly. “I mean… I hope you understand why I might not believe you, but…”

“I know,” he sighed. “I-It’s difficult to believe, I know, but… d-do you mind listening to the whole story?”

Jonathan nodded, kind smile on his face and eyes understanding. If it could make Sherwin feel any better if someone listened to his story from start to finish, no matter how much of it might be delusion, he would.

“All right, so… i-it happened after my first year of middle school, at the v-very beginning of summer break. W-we lived on the outside of the city, just next to a small wood, a p-place which was really nice and where families would bring their children in the daytime, l-like a small park with a lot of trees, you know?

“A-anyway, it was quite late one night and I’d been at a friend’s house, just playing video games with him to pass time, b-but it was late when I left. That’s my biggest regret ever, I think: none of this would have ever h-happened if I’d just asked to stay over that night… but we were having take-away back at home, and D-Dad was there for once, so I really wanted to get back home and stay with my family.

“So instead of taking the long way around, I d-decided to take a shortcut through the woods. It wasn’t supposed to be d-d-dangerous, the place where we lived was really quite safe and lots of kids would walk around alone at n-night without any problem. It wasn’t even that dark, this happened in summer, s-so even though it was ten o’clock at night there was still plenty of light to see by. It’s just… there wasn’t quite enough to see the w-wolf-man though.

“I was g-gone for a few days, and search parties were sent out to find me; they had even started p-printing posters and calling in the television channels to get my face known a-around the country. They thought I had been k-kidnapped or something. A few days later though, I was found in the bushes by a g-group of punk teenagers who were hanging around in a wood a few miles away, j-just loitering and smoking and stuff. They saw me, recognised my face from an article in the local newspaper, and c-called my parents and the police and brought me to the nearest hospital.

“I was s-sick for days after that, and the m-man that who had taken me, drugged me and dumped me in a forest where a ‘b-big dog’ had bitten me were n-never found. Everyone was r-really nice, and my parents were concerned for a while that I had c-caught something like r-rabies off the bite, but I had all my shots and the tests came up as negative anyway. After about two weeks, I was b-back on my feet though, and I continued my summer as normal. That was until the next full moon came around, and things started to get… complicated.

“It d-doesn’t happen all in one go as they show in movies. It happens g-gradually, apart from when you’re first b-bitten that is, and at first I just thought that p-puberty had hit me at last and I didn’t really think too much about it. It w-was only when my j-jaw started to ache and my eyes changed that I r-really started to worry. I stayed locked up in my r-room for a whole day, but I couldn’t keep it from my p-parents any longer than that. When they saw me, my D-Dad fainted, but my Mum has always been calm about this kind of thing and had l-looked it up immediately, and when the only results she came up with were old things in relation to w-werewolves she had to f-fight my Dad to keep him from phoning an ambulance.

“She d-did everything she could to keep me comfortable f-for that first week. It was h-hellish, I was scared and it didn’t help when my m-m-mind started to go. It was the first time, s-so I didn’t know how to keep m-myself together at all and it was horrible. I c-c-could feel the h-humanity trickling through my fingers and I was so af-fraid; there were t-times when I would r-recover a bit of self-consciousness and then I’d s-s-see that my h-hands were c-c-covered in f-fur and when I t-t-tried to s-speak it would come out as a growl and… and...”

Jonathan stepped forward, opening his arms slightly, invitingly. Sherwin looked extremely distressed, tears being wiped away from his cheeks as quickly as they appeared and words replaced by hiccups. He hesitated a few seconds, giving the redhead enough time to compose himself alone, before he decided that he had better step in and pulled him close.

He stiffened in the embrace and immediately quietened, then literally slumped, letting his whole weight rest on Jonathan, burrowing his face into his shoulder. The boy could tell that this was the first time he had anyone to tell his story, and delusional or not, he knew that he was going to feel better after having confided in someone.

That was another thing though. This story was detailed and… made sense, in a way. He didn’t have any proof of it other than the pattern of his absences, but there was something so genuine about the way he told it…

Sherwin pulled away from him, a little more violently than he meant to, probably, and muttered a ‘Thanks’ under his breath. He stepped back and didn’t seem like he was going to take up the story where he had left it, so Jonathan decided to do so himself:

“That’s why you don’t come around for a week or so every month then. You still keep the punk garb to distance yourself though, so that people won’t question your absences and will leave you alone. Do they know about your… other nature?”

He shook his head. “N-no. The nice thing about them is that they accepted me unconditionally and don’t ask too many questions. And the punk style is also a kind of th-thank you to those people who saved me. They’re not too bad, m-mind you, you should try speaking to them one d-day, they’ve got a pretty good taste in music and some interesting political ideas.”

“I don’t doubt that,” Jonathan chuckled, this action seemingly calming Sherwin down a little. “There’s still one thing that’s bothering me though...” he said, the redhead motioning in a ‘continue’ gesture. “Why did you move out? I understand that you might have been scared, but if the wolf-man was never seen again, why still worry about him?”

All the colour that had previously been in Sherwin’s face vanished, confirming that he had hit the heart of the problem.

“W-well, that’s not exactly the case…” he started again. “He f-found me a few weeks after I’d first transformed. I don’t know how, but… he t-tracked me down, and he was in his human f-form. He had a knife, and… he tried to s-stab me.

“I could tell it was him. I w-would recognise him anywhere, he has a smell… my sense of smell b-became extremely good after that first transformation, and it d-doesn’t wear off that much when it’s n-new moon either. Anyway, I got away, and as s-soon as my Mum found out about it she made plans to move.

“While sh-she was doing this, I r-researched it. I had to go through quite a few G-Gaelic texts, but I found out th-that there was a reason why he wanted to... f-finish the job off. It t-turns out that when a wolf bites a human and th-that that human becomes a were, there’s a way to c-cure it, and that is that the were has to k-k-kill by their own hand the were that had bitten them in the first place.”

“He considered you as a threat, then,” Jonathan concluded.

“R-ridiculous, isn’t it?” Sherwin chuckled. “This guy is twice as tall as me and is built like a bear, but he still th-thinks that me, tiny and s-skinny and lame in one leg, could take him down.”

The other boy didn’t laugh at the attempt at humour, seeing clearly through the act and perceiving the dread it was trying to hide.

“There’s something else though. You were fine before, but something has changed, hasn’t it?”

He looked up, and the fear he saw in his face was like no other he had ever witnessed in anyone before.

“Y-yes. L-last week, I… I caught the wolf-man’s scent again.”

* * *

Jonathan honestly didn’t know what to say, nor what to think any more. They still had some time before them, and he had proposed to go to a café or something to get a hot drink, chase away the cold that the rain and the chilling story had left in their bones. As they sat in front of their steaming mugs (coffee for Sherwin and tea for himself), Jonathan wanted to say something, ask for some extra proof of his story. He wished so badly that the redhead wouldn’t be able to give him any, that this was just all in his head as he still assumed it was (because werewolves couldn’t really exist, couldn’t they?), but doubt had planted its seed and no matter how hard he tried to shake it off, it remained firmly rooted there.

“Sherwin...” he started, interrupting the silence that had rested as heavy as a coffin lid over them for quite a while now. “You mentioned being lame in one leg a little earlier, but I have never seen you struggle to walk.”

“Oh, that,” he said, disinterestedly stirring in the fourth sugar cube he had added to his beverage since he had gotten his drink, without ever taking a sip of it yet. “It isn’t t-too bad, you can only really n-notice it when I try to run. I c-can’t go very fast. It’s from where I was b-bitten.”

This attracted Jonathan’s attention. This may be the proof (or lack thereof) that he had been looking for.

“Can… I maybe see?” he asked tentatively, making Sherwin immediately turn scarlet. “It’s just that I’ve still got my doubts” he added quickly, trying to catch up his awkward words with an explanation.

He nodded, still concentrated on stirring his drink, but the red hadn’t left his face yet. “I understand. There isn’t much proof I can give you, and even less that I’d be willing to give you, but...”

“And why’s that then?” he interrupted him, his curiosity overriding his politeness. “Sorry,” he promptly apologised when Sherwin stopped and buried his head in his hands.

“N-no, it’s fine,” he mumbled through his palms. “I-it’s j-just that they’re all embarrassing. I’m s-scared you’ll see me as a m-monster.”

“That’s alright. If you don’t feel comfortable with it, you don’t have to...”

“No! I… I want you to b-believe me. Just… j-just so you know I’m n-not insane or something...”

“Even if you can’t convince me, I wouldn’t consider you as such, because it wouldn’t be true,” Jonathan snapped back dryly. “You’re far from insane, trust me. And you’re no monster either.”

The redhead smiled at him, taking the first sip of his lukewarm, sweet drink. “Th-thank you. Still, I th-think it’s the right thing for me to do so. It w-wouldn’t be worth seeing a transformation, but the next one should happen by the end of this w-week, and I don’t really want you to see me in that sorry state. B-besides, it would be dangerous, I don’t want to bite you, even if it isn’t on purpose.”

They silently went back to their drinks, Sherwin finishing his first and insisting on paying the bill for both of them. He then got up and snagged the taller teen’s sleeve, pulling him towards the toilets on the other side of the small coffee shop. At this time of day there weren’t that many people around, but Sherwin still leaned against the closed door anyway, instinct telling him to block the only entrance.

“He c-caught my left thigh. He didn’t take off too much f-flesh and it scarred well, fortunately, but it’s s-still not too pretty. I’m s-sorry to have to show you this,” he said, but before Jonathan could stop him by telling him that it wasn’t his fault, he pulled the waistband of his jeans down to his knees and looked away to avoid embarrassment.

For some reason, Jonathan took a step back, feeling slightly sick. He didn’t know why, he had seen way worse injuries before, but there was something with the fact that it was Sherwin who had been hurt… It wasn’t disgust, but rage that stirred his gut.

The tooth marks stood out in ridges, forming an absolutely huge U-shape that didn’t look like anything that any known predator could leave. However, the most upsetting were not the neat puncture marks on the bend of the U that could be left by any sharp-toothed mammal or reptile, but rather the square ones that the boy could only compare to marks left by obscenely large human molars. For a second, he thought _camel_ but even they didn’t have jaws that enormous.

Something prompted him to move his hand forward, probably to check that it wasn’t an optical illusion from the bad lighting of the neons above (or maybe was it to comfort him, in an odd way?), but he had forgotten that Sherwin wasn’t currently aware of his movements. His fingers brushed one of the ridges of the scar a good distance under the line of his boxers, but the redhead obviously wasn’t expecting it. He flinched violently, slipping and nearly falling on the tiles.

“I’m sorry!” Jonathan was quick to apologise, the rage he had felt earlier turning cold as he caught the flash of a snarl on Sherwin’s face, the first sign of anger he had seen coming from him, but it disappeared quickly to let terror and embarrassment take its place.

“N-no, it’s my fault,” he mumbled, pulling his trousers back up and shoving his hands into his pockets. “It’s silly, it still scares me. It should’ve gone by now.”

“Nonsense. You just weren’t expecting it, and I didn’t give you any warning. Also, I think you’ll be happy to know that my doubt has been seriously put in question. I can’t think of a single creature that could leave such a mark.”

He smiled, although he was still avoiding his gaze, and set back towards the restaurant’s main area without comment. Once they were outside, Sherwin took in a large, shuddering breath of the humidity-clad air, then smiled properly at Jonathan.

“Do you m-mind walking with me a bit?”

He nodded, adapting his steps to Sherwin’s surprisingly swift ones. They were headed towards where the redhead lived, unsurprisingly so as it was getting pretty late already.

“So… have you told our family about this?”

“About t-telling you about my real self, you mean? I’m not sure whether they’d appreciate it...”

“No, this… scent. This threat.”

He looked away, face darkening. He did something weird with one of his earrings, twisting it once or twice, mumbling something under his breath that sounded like a curse.

“No,” he finally answered. “Th-they don’t need to know. Mum w-will want to move out again, b-but now I’m sure he’s got my new scent, s-so it wouldn’t make much of a difference, he would catch up w-with us straight away. Scents change with y-young people as th-they grow older and remain k-kind of the same when you’re an adult, l-like growing up, that’s something I’ve noticed with my little b-brother anyway. My scent h-has probably changed a l-lot since when I lived in my other t-town, but if I’ve smelled h-him, he probably already f-found me. He’s older, g-got more experience. Even if he hasn’t found us yet, he’ll find us soon.”

“You must have met him more than once to know so much about him,” Jonathan pointed out. Sherwin shook his head imperceptibly to the side, eyes half lidded.

“You d-don’t need to have m-met him more than once to know that much about him. I’m n-not sure how to d-describe it. Simply in the way he moves, you can tell he’s dangerous, and he can c-control his transformations as well. When he tried t-to...” He dragged a thumb across his neck. “it wasn’t with a knife that he t-tried to stab me, b-but with his claws. Full m-moon was over, but he managed to make these huge, f-four-inch-long claws appear. It was terrifying. It was by p-pure luck that I managed to get out of his way in time, I pretended to be hitch-hiking and stopped a van. That action w-was like jumping from the fire into the frying pan, but at least I didn’t get killed.”

His classmate didn’t dare ask what warranted the choice in words, he could guess that from the shifted stance that he adopted. Sherwin may have seemed weak to someone hearing him speak and seeing him cry on another boy’s shoulder, acting younger than his age and general appearance let on, but Jonathan could tell he had been through well enough to allow him at least the little bit of weakness he had displayed up to now.

Conversation was slow on the trip back, and it was only once they got to the front gate to the house that they snapped out of their silence.

“Here,” said Sherwin, handing his coat back to him. It had started drizzling again, and when Jonathan passed a hand through his hair, he found thousands of tiny beads of water clinging to his fringe. He took the coat, and they stood there awkwardly for a few more seconds, something missing that should have been filling that instant weighing on him as he saw the little light left to shine through the clouds catch on the little details: Sherwin’s earrings and piercings, the water clinging to his own hair, his eyes…

“So, er, see you tomorrow I guess,” he said, waving as he turned around to go home, the tension a little much for him.

“All right,” Sherwin replied, something akin to disappointment crossing his features before he turned his own way, shooting a quick smile in Jonathan’s direction as he did. The other followed suit, and like before, as soon as he had passed the bend, something huge seemed to fall on his chest, not forcing him into a sprint like he had the day before, but rather led him to stagger and nearly fall in a puddle.

There was just… so much to take in. He had never been confronted with something as convoluted as this. He had thought that maybe Sherwin needed a little help with counselling, had a difficult situation that he could get over with a little help from some friends… But no. This was a matter of life and death.

He decided that as soon as he got back home, he would look up different large animal’s dentitions. The hippopotamus was also a possibility, but an unlikely one. Again, he was trying to put a logical spin on the situation, something that he could deal with.

So that’s what he did as soon as he got back home. As he passed the door, he even forgot to announce his presence as he usually did and made a beeline for the family computer, typing in ‘hippopotamus teeth’ as soon as the search bar opened, and was dismayed to find that what he found was as far as possible from what he had observed on Sherwin. He tried several other animals, such as camels, as he had thought at the beginning, but was yet again disappointed to see that he had been right in thinking that no camel had jaws quite that big. He was scrolling through different wolf, dog and bear craniums when he was struck with another thought, that was in itself disturbing enough to stop him in his research.

What if… Sherwin’s delusion had been strong enough, and had lasted long enough for him to do that mark to himself?

With a knife, it might just be possible, Jonathan thought. He would have to see the mark again, because compression by molars isn’t something you can recreate easily with said implement, but… there was that possibility to take into account as well.

Then, he tried to look up news from two years back concerning disappearances that had taken place in the town Sherwin had lived in before. It wasn’t difficult to find the local newspaper articles that treated of the subject, the first ones that he found being very alarming about the whole case and even included the school photograph Jonathan had seen in the file accompanying the article. The ones announcing that he had been found, however, were much shorter and only took up a small amount of space in one of the columns. The important part were the dates though, and when he recalled what Sherwin had told him, he saw that they all fit perfectly into his description. What had happened to him in that time? Had he really turned into a were as he had seemed to imply, or was there something else in relation to his absence that he just hadn’t had the courage (or maybe the will) to reveal?

Of course, the best course of action to clearing all doubt would probably be to contact the family and ask them directly about their son’s case, but Sherwin had expressed his dismissal of the idea of them knowing about his contact with Jonathan, and he didn’t really want to break the trust he had already built up with said boy. On the other had, he’d get a solid answer to all his questions.

Jonathan groaned and let his forehead fall to the keyboard, overwhelmed with the complexity of the situation. It was only by the time he finished his homework (he had to clear his head somehow) and nearly started eating his meal that he decided that he wasn’t going to ask Sherwin’s parents. Not only it would be an awkward move, but an easy one, a cop-out of sorts. Of course, if it was confirmed to him that Sherwin was indeed... what he said he was, he would do his best to convince him to alert the family about the person stalking him. It was better if he never saw him again than finding out that he had been murdered, he thought grimly, before he pushed the thought aside and tried to concentrate on his food. Unlike this morning, he wasn’t feeling very hungry, pushing the food around his plate without putting much in his mouth.

“Jonathan? Are you feeling alright?” his Dad asked him. He looked up and tried to smile, but it remained stiff. There was something with thinking about Sherwin moving out that made him feel melancholic, and he could see that his half-hearted action only achieved in making his father more concerned than he was already.

“The coach phoned me today to tell me that you missed out on training, something to do with a medical appointment that didn’t happen to be on the calendar when I checked,” his mother added, smoothly dropping the information that had all eyes on her in an instant. She didn’t look up, finished her mouthful before wiping her lips daintily on a napkin.

“I was, erm… helping a friend. That’s right, just doing some schoolwork, nothing to worry about.”

“Oh no, I’m not worried. This friend… she must be very _special_ if you’re ready to lie to a teacher in order to get some time with her. This… studying must have been very fruitful indeed. Quality time, I would say.”

There she was again, always wanting to add her own interpretation to things. If only she knew the truth.

“I can assure you that whatever you think happened today didn’t.”

“Fair enough, I believe you,” his father defended. Jonathan was glad that he was taking his side in this sort of thing for a change. “I think that you would only be missing activities, especially ones as important to you as sports, only if you had a good reason to. I’m not against you skipping any classes actually, but only as long as you keep your grades up and don’t get hurt.”

“Percy!”

“It’s true though. I’m sorry, but our son really is quite the prodigy. I think he’s got very good judgement and can decide for himself what is right and wrong.”

Jonathan got up, sensing the arrival of one of the rare, but intense arguments that sometimes cropped up between his parents.

“Thanks for the meal, I’m off to bed now.”

As expected, he was ignored in favour of shouting. He rolled his eyes as he slowly made his way up the stairs, his parent’s voices muffled once he closed his bedroom door on them. Whether they agreed or not, their eyes and words were only ever directed at each other.

He got undressed and into his pyjamas, slumping on his bed with a sigh. The tacky posters his mother had taped to the ceiling when he was a kid, tiny little green dragons and orange elephants, were where his eyes landed as he thought through the day, trying, as per, to make sense of all the details now that he was back at home and comfortable.

It was indeed a lot. Whether Sherwin’s world was real or imagined, things were not looking their best. From what he had seen of him, he had a certain paranoia that could not be healthy about him, and it wasn’t something that was common in kids of his age if they weren’t subjected to some form of trauma. Again, he cycled through the events of the day, before stopping at the scar again. He tried to remember what the molar marks had looked like when he was suddenly hit with the context of the whole scene.

Not being of that sort of mindset, he hadn’t thought of their situation at that time as _risqué_ in the slightest, but now he understood why Sherwin had turned away and had refused to look him in the eye while he examined his wound. Goodness, anyone, even the less gossipy students would have had a field day if they had caught the one known as Mr. Perfect in that kind of situation with local ne’er-do-well group member Sherwin Payne.

And now he felt his face heating up for some reason, and _why_ did he have to think of that now? The realisation of the embarrassing situation had tapped onto something else, a slight opening to the door to his subconscious that had him thinking that _maybe_ there was something about Sherwin that he had never seen before in anyone else. Something extraordinary. He picked up his pillow and pressed it firmly against his face in frustration, but no more practical thoughts came to him, only replaying the numerous smiles and laughs, the ones that made him incomprehensibly happy.

He concluded two things from his “session”: he really needed some kind of in-falsifiable proof of Sherwin’s supernatural nature (or lack thereof), and the fact that he really, really wanted to be a little closer to Sherwin. As a friend, of course.

Of course. He just wanted him to be safe, like anyone else.

Of course.

That was all there was to it.

(Right?)

* * *

The next morning was much more glum than the one before, the table only sporting fruit and a cooling teapot that his mother had left out for him before hurrying off to work. As was to be expected, his father wasn’t up yet, nearly never doing so when it wasn’t necessary. This was fine with Jonathan, who much preferred this to the awkwardness that usually followed the evenings when a fight had occurred, all half-glances and quick gestures.

He left as quickly as his parents had, walking to school as briskly as he could. He had decided on something new over his cup of tea that morning. Whatever his situation, Sherwin had to get out of his shell, and he would help him do so even if he had to put himself and his own reputation at risk for that.

As expected, he had to wait for mid-morning break in order to put his plan into action. It wasn’t complicated, it didn’t need to be, but it had big things at stake if it didn’t work. It was there and then, in front of the school, where everyone was watching, that the gang of punks stepped out for their first round of pacing (there wasn’t much else to it than that. They just walked around and looked menacing). Jonathan got up from where he was sitting on the grass surrounded by his usual clique, walked over to the group quickly enough so as to take them by surprise, and made a beeline to their very scared-looking shortest member.

“Hi there, Sherwin! How are you doing?”

The handshake he was given in return had a very soft grip to it, all the redhead’s strength going in the reproachful look that he addressed Jonathan. The other boy simply smiled back, ignoring it completely.

“Hey, what do you think _you_ ’re doing?” said a girl from the group, several years older (probably in her last year of school) and with tubes through her ears that let you see through to the other side. The other members backed her up, some wearing aggressive and other more confused expressions on their faces, but none of them with the rock-hard intent that their leader displayed so readily.

“Sorry! I’m Jonathan Sharma by the way, nice to meet you!” he said, sticking out a hand with the same easiness as he had with Sherwin. There was a silence, everyone’s eyes, the punks’ as well as his own group members’, trained intensely on them, waiting for the tall girl’s reaction. This is where he either made or broke it. For a second, her expression morphed, and Jonathan found himself stiffening in anticipation for a punch, but then she laughed, and all the tension left everyone in one go.

“I like your style, mate! I like it!” she roared, slapping her hand into his and squeezing ferociously. “You’ve got quite some nerve there, I like that. Hey, what do you think of the latest elections in...”

From then on, Jonathan was embarked on a huge political discussion that he had problems getting out of, and that resumed once he finished his morning classes and started on his lunch break. It was only halfway through the meal that Patsy (he had learned her name a little earlier) stopped in order to breathe and eat a bit.

They were all sitting on the grass outside, the only ones not present being those who had to go somewhere else to get their meal. It was a weird seating arrangement: Jonathan’s group, attracted by his presence yet repelled by the punk’s one, sat to one of his sides while the latter took his other, making him a kind of “bridge” between the two very different mindsets.

“Hey, Jonathan,” another person asked him, reviving the conversation that had become a little flat and tense. “Where did you meet our little Sherwin then? I’ve never seen you speaking to each other before.”

He had to be careful here, he had to…

“We bumped into each other in a coffee shop yesterday, and then we sorta got talking? I don’t know, it’s just one of those things that happen...” Sherwin said, surprising everyone by coming out of his silence for the first time since that morning, and also sounding so confident in his speech for once.

“But weren’t you at practice yesterday?” one of the more well-informed kids on his other side asked, suspicion hinting in his voice.

“No, I had a dentist’s appointment,” he replied, quickly remembering the lie that he had told the coach. “It didn’t take that long, but there wasn’t much time left over for it to be worthwhile if I showed my face, so I went and got a drink instead.”

The rest of the conversation turned to music, an interesting debate cropping up about genres, before one of the punks had everyone listen to something that was _definitely_ an acquired taste. Slowly but surely, they mingled and soon enough, even though they were from different horizons, the achievers and non-conformists started getting on like a house on fire.

It was only once afternoon classes were over and that they had managed to ditch everyone (Sherwin had assured his own group that he would walk home with Jonathan for once. They didn’t complain, it gave them the opportunity to get in trouble that they wouldn’t dare drag their group’s youngest member in usually. All in all, they were surprisingly considerate, in their own way) that Jonathan and Sherwin managed to get some time to speak together, no prying ears present to interrupt them.

“Why did you have to d-do that?” the redhead was quick to ask on the first leg of their journey. “That was incredibly risky. You could have gotten beaten up, or lost your popularity or something.”

Jonathan shrugged. “It was the only way I could think of in order to get you and your lot some more friends. It’s important, you know.”

“I don’t _need_ m-more friends,” the redhead grumbled, kicking a stone that was sitting on the pavement. It skittered a few feet before falling into the gutter.

“Oh I think you do,” Jonathan argued good-heartedly. “Friends are what get you places. You’re group really is nice, but I think that if you just half-socialise with a small number of people and block all the rest off, you’re missing out on opportunities to make acquaintances that could change your life.”

That had attracted his attention, for a spilt-second, anyway, before his head dipped back to the ground and the frown returned to his face.

“I’m not c-coming tomorrow. I should start ch-changing tonight, I felt the tension of it b-building up all day and I d-don’t think I’ve got much longer before fur starts growing all over.”

“Dead giveaway if ever there was one,” Jonathan added. “When will you be back after that?”

Sherwin shrugged. “Either T-Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on how I look and f-feel. It varies.”

“By the way,” the taller of the two continued. “There’s something I don’t quite understand with all this… business.” He gestured widely in Sherwin’s direction, and he nodded in understanding, prompting him to continue. “Why did you trust me with all this in the first place? You didn’t know me that well, in fact we had never met formally. Why did you open up to me so easily?”

He coughed, once, twice into his closed fist, head no longer bowed but turned away, looking towards the street rather than at him. “Everyone knows of J-Jonathan Sharma at school, the all-achiever with a heart of gold. You help p-people on a regular basis, so to me you were the most t-trustworthy person I knew.”

Jonathan accepted the praise with a shrug. “Still, be careful in the future. Your secret is… heavy, to say the least. Try and confide in a person you know better rather than a random stranger with a good reputation next time.”

“Myeah.”

They were getting closer to the house now, a silence installing itself between them. It really was early in the afternoon, too early to warrant wanting to go back home, so Jonathan attempted to get something out of this if he could:

“Do you think… your family should know that I know about you? I mean, I know I’m repeating myself here, but maybe it’s for the best if they did.”

Sherwin sighed, pinching his brow. He looked tired, tense and anticipating something. Either it was his were form, the full moon being on Friday and all, or the imminent presence of the wolf-man that he thought could pounce at any moment and take him out. Probably both were to blame I this case.

“I’m n-not sure… Maybe it is. Mum and s-sis will not be happy, but they will be glad if I was honest with them from the very s-start…” he mused, speaking more to himself than to the teen waiting next to him. Finally, after several minutes of deliberation, he turned to fully face him, weak smile and deep bags under his eyes twin testaments of his exhaustion, but a nod approving of his decision. “Yes, I think we should do this.”

Jonathan mimicked his movement, and they climbed the few wobbling steps to the front door. He was about to turn the key in the lock, before he turned back to face Jonathan, deadly serious. “Not a word about the wolf-man,” he whispered, and then the lock clicked and the next instant they were standing in a dark hall.

“Honey, is that you?” a voice asked, half shouted from the next room, one that seemed to have more light coming from it than the rest. “Wait a minute, I just have to finish this and I’m all yours.”

The woman who soon emerged from the kitchen had a really welcoming appearance, all smiles and eyes creased to full laughter lines’ potential, but she dropped all this abruptly as soon as she noticed the second person standing next to her son.

“Sherwin,” she said, her warning tone making him cringe. “Can you explain to me who this is?”

“Mum, th-this is Jonathan.” He threw a glance his way. “… a friend.”

“Sherwin,” she repeated, bringing up her arms to cross them on her chest.

“All right! M-mum, this is Jonathan, I told him...”

“That you’re a fox.”

The taller boy looked at him in confusion. “You’re not a wolf?” he whispered.

He cringed again. “No, wolves are c-common but foxes exist as well.”

“SHERWIN!” the woman shouted, making both the teens jump and bringing their attention back to her. “Both of you. In the living room. Now.”

They glanced at each other, Sherwin apologetically, but Jonathan knew that something like this could happen and didn’t blame him for how things had panned out.

The living room was relatively small and cramped, but cosy in its own way. Jonathan took place next to Sherwin on the small sofa even though he had whispered “Sit wherever” under his breath. For some reason, he found it comforting to do so, only a few inches separating their legs. The mother soon emerged into the room again, the same frown she held when they had first set her eyes on them still pinching her face in the middle. She sat in a large armchair that was slightly angled away from the sofa, the room’s furniture arranged in a way that let everyone present watch the imposing cathode TV sitting against the far wall.

“So, Jonathan it is, right?” she asked, to which the boy nodded. She slumped further in her seat, as exhausted-looking as her son. “I’m assuming you know the implications of what you have discovered. You can’t tell anyone unless you want us to disappear without a trace, be it of our own will or not.”

“He knows, Mum. I t-told him all about...”

“Sherwin, let me finish,” she interrupted. “By the way, what is your relationship? I don’t think I’ve ever seen you around, or hanging out with the gang...”

Again, the two teens exchanged a look, before turning back to face Mrs. Payne.

“We’re friends,” Jonathan said bitterly (Why had he said it like that? Where had that bitterness come from?).

“Fair enough. I guess I can’t do much about it now, but please keep in mind, _Jonathan_ , that you’ve stepped into something very dangerous here. From tomorrow onwards up to when he goes back to school next week, I forbid you to come here and to interact with my son. You can stay here this afternoon, but that’ll be all. Have I made myself clear?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Good. I’ll phone Beatrice and tell her about this new development then. You run and play, do homework or something. Just stay out of my way.”

She got up and left the room, the next sounds being of her talking on the phone frantically.

“Well,” Sherwin said. “Th-that went better than I thought it would.”

“You say that, but you’re not the one who received the motherly warnings and threats,” Jonathan chuckled, punching the redhead’s arm lightly. “Right. I told Ingrid a few days ago that I wanted your info because I was to tutor you. Should we get that homework over?”

He received a bug-eyed expression in response. “Is that the only thing you ever think of?”

Jonathan shrugged. “Well, once it’s over, you don’t have to think about it, don’t you?”

“Yes, b-but I’m not even going in tomorrow. What’s the point?”

“ _The point is,”_ Jonathan said, insisting on every word, “ _you have to do homework to better understand the lessons.”_

He burst out laughing, and he was close to feel every chuckle echo through him and interfere with the beats of his heart. “You s-sound just like the crusty old Latin teacher in that t-tiny classroom on the third floor! You know the one who always says...”

“ _Asinus asinum fricat!”_ they cried in unison, before both bursting in uncontrollable laughter.

When they had recovered, they straitened up from their previous position (they had sprawled over each other on the small couch in glee), the odd chuckle escaping them as they crossed each other’s gazes.

“Y-you’re right, we might as well get the long term stuff over. There are a f-few things that I don’t understand in b-biology anyway. Might as well take advantage of the school’s t-top student’s presence while you’re around,” he teased. “I’ll be back, I’m just going to g-get my stuff in my room and we can get to work.”

“Do you want me to come with you?” Jonathan asked, but Sherwin immediately froze at the suggestion.

“Er, sure,” he finally replied, although his smile was now forced and nervous. “It’s j-just a little bit of a mess, so mind your step.”

There it was again, the false chuckle. He was scared, there was something in his room that he was unsure whether he wanted to show Jonathan, or else he was scared of Jonathan’s reaction to whatever as waiting for him there.

They made their way up the stairs silently apart from the sound of old floorboards creaking, and Jonathan had time to organise the information that he had now. He now had confirmation from someone else that Sherwin was indeed a were (even though he hadn’t been expecting the -fox part, he could see the sense in it), someone close enough to be trustworthy, as far as he could tell. Now he had near to no reason to doubt, but he didn’t have any control over his logical-thinking mind, stuck in its paradigm as it was. He couldn’t help it: he didn’t believe what he didn’t see for himself, and up to now everything he had been presented with had been something he could question (what if Sherwin was brought up to think that all this was true? What if the family played along to cover up some other secret?).

The door marked “Sherwin” with a simple sign wasn’t in itself that foreboding, looking like any other teenager’s room door, if not a little plain. However, it was when it was shoved open to reveal the room beyond that Jonathan understood what all the nerves were about.

Usually, the most imposing piece of furniture in a bedroom would either be the bed or a wardrobe, but this was far from being the case here. A bed did indeed stand in the corner of the room, a large trunk sitting at its foot, but the thing that by far took up the most floor space was a huge metal cage.

The base was cement and looked extremely heavy, so heavy that Jonathan supposed that it would have been impossible to bring it up the stairs; it must have been cast directly here, in the room. Metal bars rose up to the ceiling, the only interruption in them being for an iron door that granted access to the cell-area, and that was for the time being tightly shut. Some tufts of red fur stood out against the grey cement even in the half-light that the drawn curtains allowed into the room, and, surprisingly, a number of books, all of them well-read but badly looked after, littered the bottom of the cage.

Sherwin must have seen him staring, because he tried to pull him by the sleeve out of the room. “Sorry,” he mumbled under his breath. “You sh-shouldn’t have seen that, it’s embarrassing.”

“No, don’t apologise,” said Jonathan while Sherwin made sure his bedroom door was securely shut. “I was just surprised that you had books in there, that’s all.”

“Well, if I concentrate enough I c-can read. I think I d-don’t really need the cage anymore actually, and I don’t usually spend too much t-time in it, but it’s just to isolate myself when my family c-comes in to bring me meals. I can’t risk g-going wild on them and biting anyone, even if it’s not on p-purpose. I’ve got control, but my f-form can be pretty unpredictable, you know? Foxes _are_ w-wild animals after all.”

“I understand. You know, I don’t and won’t judge you for all this. It isn’t your fault that you’re like this, after all. Just dumb bad luck.”

He looked up from where he was fiddling with the lock. “Th-thank you, I appreciate that. I m-may be a were, but I’m human, I will always s-stay human, no matter my form. Thank you for acknowledging that,” he said, sincerity and thankfulness infusing every one of his words.

“That’s fine. I guess that it isn’t something that you hear often after all. So, what’s it to be? The digestive system or the lesson on pollens?”

They studied for a few hours at the kitchen table, jumping from one subject to another as soon as Sherwin understood the lesson better. It turned out that his low grades were not linked to his lack of motivation when it came to learning new things, but rather the repeated absences that meant that there were some classes he simply hadn’t been able to take. Jonathan was surprised to find that he was actually a very fast learner, and when it came to mathematics in particular, even he struggled to stay ahead of Sherwin when it came to understanding concepts.

“Well, I think that’s enough studying for today, don’t you think?” Jonathan finally said, seeing Sherwin had finally had enough and was literally falling asleep on his textbook.

“Er, yes, I th-think so too,” he admitted through a yawn. “When do you h-have to be back home?”

Jonathan looked at the kitchen clock, a novelty object with a fork acting as a minute hand and a spoon as the hours’.

“In about two or three hours. I can still hang around for a bit, but I wouldn’t want to impose...”

“No! It’s f-fine, don’t worry. We could maybe watch a f-film? Is that all right with you?”

The redhead looked at him hopefully, so Jonathan couldn’t say anything other than yes. It was true that the last few hours had been rather comfortable, he could see how relaxed Sherwin had been as compared to when they were outside or at school. Maybe that if he stayed a little longer, he could keep him at ease at least for a little while. He deserved it after all. And there was something appealing about sitting in front of a film together, curled up on the sofa…

“All right. Just choose your favourite, there’s nothing I don’t like film-wise anyway.”

It was a good thing that he had said so, because Sherwin obviously had extremely weird tastes when it came to them. It was an old police drama from the last century, the full black-and-white package with terror chords whenever something important to the plot appeared on screen. The film in itself was rather boring, but it wasn’t at the screen that Jonathan found himself looking at the most.

His classmate, who, from what he had told Mrs. Payne, was now his ‘friend’, was watching the film intently, the bad lighting not doing much for his complexion, accentuating the dark bags under his eyes and casting shadows on his cheeks, making them look sunken even though they were not. However, there was something hypnotic about watching him as his attention was elsewhere. His eyelids were drooping, and Jonathan, not wanting to be caught staring, turned his attention back to the screen. A man was talking to another in an office. Boring.

As soon as he thought that, he felt a heavy weight fall on his shoulder, and for a second his stomach plummeted, thinking it was Sherwin’s mother who had come to get him, ready to throw him out, but in fact when he carefully looked to his side, he saw that it was simply Sherwin’s head that was resting there. He wasn’t asleep either, in fact he seemed perfectly aware of his current position as his face was shades darker than it had been seconds ago.

Now that he was so much closer, Jonathan could see all the little details that he hadn’t ever paid attention to before. Freckles, small and faint from the lack of sunlight, spread across his nose and cheeks, forming the negative render of numerous tiny little constellations.

A wave of self-consciousness fell on him in one go, like a bucket of cold water upturned over his head. Jonathan Sharma, number one student and the role model to all the people aspiring to anything at school, was currently admiring in the cheesiest way possible how one of his classmate’s freckles looked so much like stars. He couldn’t shake his head to clear his thoughts, that would mean dislodging Sherwin, and the last thing he wanted was for the incredibly comfortable and warm presence at his side to leave, but he did mentally berate himself for a few seconds before returning his attention to the screen. He must really be tired if his thoughts were acting up on him like this.

“Does it hurt?”

He didn’t know where the words had come from. He didn’t even know what he meant, until he added onto that: “Taking on your other form.”

There was a silence. The man behind the desk pulled out a gun and shot the one wearing a dark hat several times, the gunshots muted and distorted from the sound quality of that time.

“Yes.”

He felt for him. He really did.

By the time the credits rolled around, the redhead had fallen asleep on his shoulder, exhaustion having taken its toll. Jonathan didn’t dare to move an inch. Besides, he still had time.

A hand landed in his hair, and instinctively Jonathan tried to bat it away, but he held back just in time.

“You know, little brother has been an insomniac for years now,” came a whispered voice from behind him, supposedly the one that the hand belonged to. The hand left his hair and light footsteps were heard, and the woman to whom it belonged to appeared in his vision.

If Sherwin was a fox, this person was a lioness. A mane of dark hair tumbled over her broad shoulders, and her serious expression as motherly in a stern way as Mrs. Payne’s. She took a seat in the chair that Jonathan was tempted to call the ‘lecturing seat’, looking at the two boys with the obvious intent of issuing some kind of warning.

“Beatrice, I presume,” Jonathan said under his breath.

The woman opposite him raised an eyebrow, but didn’t question him. “And you’re Jonathan.”

“Yes.”

“Well, Jonathan, you’re the first person in two years that Sherwin has confided his secret in, and now that I see you, I can understand that there’s a good reason behind that. He trusts you.”

“You’re saying that as if it’s a rare thing coming from him.”

“It is.”

Now that was contradictory. Why would Sherwin trust him? He had given him a reason earlier, but it seemed a little weak now that he thought about it.

Beatrice leaned forward in her chair, catching his wavering attention again. “It’s a rare thing, and its precious. You’re good for him, I can see that from the fact that he’s sleeping so deeply. Please, continue being kind to him. He deserves a little real friendship for once.”

“I know.”

“Good.”

She got up and left without another word. It was only half an hour later that Sherwin emerged from his slumber and promptly apologised for Jonathan’s numb arm. He didn’t have time to say that it was fine, because once he glanced at the clock, he saw that if he didn’t hurry he was going to be in big trouble.

He waved goodbye to everyone, even the twelve-year-old boy who sat in the kitchen and that he hadn’t been introduced to yet, and was about to set off when he was stopped by someone.

“Wait! D-don’t forget your bag,” Sherwin said, handing it over as he did.

“Oh, thanks. Sorry about that,” he replied, quickly pulling his shoes on and looking around for his coat. He was ready now, about to set out the front door, but he still took the time to turn around and give Sherwin a quick but sincere bro-hug.

“See you next week, I guess.”

“Yeah. S-see you.”

And he was out, halfway down the street, jogging away from his classmate with his secret life and who made his heart beat so fast that it might just burst out of his chest and take on a life of its own.

* * *

Jonathan got home just in time to sit down at the table, quickly issue an apology and attack his food, that was rapidly turning cold. His parents exchanged a look, before his mother, contrary to her usual self, asked without malice:

“Jonathan, are you all right?”

“Just tutoring, Mum. It’s over until next week now, I won’t be coming home late any more,” he mumbled barely intelligibly. He speared some peas on his fork. “We just have to work out a better timetable.”

After that, they didn’t say anything more, simply eating in silence until the end of the meal.

“Son, if you’ve got a problem, you can always talk to us about it.”

“Yes, we’ll always be here for you, son.”

It wasn’t often that they said these kind of things, so Jonathan accepted it with a smile and an assurance that he would, before excusing himself and going up to his room. Despite the tossing and turning, he couldn’t quite get to sleep, and he wondered whether it was possibly the full moon acting on him as well. But in reality, he knew that it was his restless thoughts, the fact that no matter how hard he tried to believe this thing about weres, he could not, and of course, these confusing thoughts he could not make sense of, that he had never felt before. For the first time in years, Jonathan felt lonely. There was something missing, and he felt that he was going to have trouble waiting until next Wednesday for it to come back to him again.

Indeed, Thursday went by slowly, and so did Friday. He still managed to achieve some things, like strengthening the bond between the two groups of students that he had befriended (he felt that the punks hadn’t really wanted to isolate themselves from the rest of the school either, and they seemed relieved when they found that mingling with others didn’t affect their impressive aura that they had worked so hard to maintain over the years) and of course getting full marks in that test they had taken last week, but he still felt bad for Sherwin, thinking of the pain he was going through, but being slightly frustrated by the fact that there was nothing he could do about it.

That was how on Friday evening after class, he found himself sitting in Ingrid’s office, her ever-faithful biscuit tin and kettle ready to serve and help soothe emotional cuts and bruises.

“So, how’s this tutoring with… Sherwin? Is that right?”

“Yes, that’s him.”

“All right. How’s it going, then?”

Jonathan sighed, leaning back in the seat of his chair and letting his eyes trace the pattern on the inexistant pattern ceiling. “Fine, I guess. He isn’t as dumb as people think he is.”

“Oh, really? That can only be good news, then.”

“Yes, it is. It’s just that he misses so many classes, there is no way he can keep his grades up.”

“And why’s that?”

The boy waved the question away. “A number of things. By the way, how’s Emma doing?”

Diverting the conversation to Ingrid’s niece was the best move he could think of in that instant, and it worked surprisingly well; she went on about her long enough for the water in the teapot to go cold.

“I’m sorry Ingrid, but I think it’s about time for me to go home now. I promised my parents I wouldn’t be back late again.”

“Alright, I must be boring you to death anyway. Have a good weekend!”

“You too! Say hi to the family from me!” he added before setting off. He walked through different corridors, all of them empty and some of them dark. However, it was only when he stepped out into the main ones that he felt truly fearful.

There’s something about certain spaces that are not meant to be empty that become creepy when they eventually are so (kenopsia, maybe?). Claustrophobia held him at the neck, the thoughts of the were-man coming to get him making him spin around at every creak of the old school building. No matter how much he thought it was silly, he was on edge, and he couldn’t help it.

Jonathan made it outside, and when he did, he breathed in the rain-heavy air with great pleasure. There was surely going to be a storm tonight, he had time to think, before he heard the grunt behind him. He was about to turn around, but a sharp pain at the back of his head interrupted him, and his consciousness slipped between his fingers and he left it far out of reach as he tumbled into the void.

* * *

The book was simple, but he had problems concentrating on the plot. The moon was full tonight, and the animal part of him was at its full potential, hindering his thought process and making him restless. He set the book aside with a sigh and got up from his bed, stretching like he only did when he was like this and looked out the window. He couldn’t see very well, but even through the closed glass and the white noise of rain he could hear a rat skitter across the asphalt and the whoosh of a night-bird’s flight. There were sounds, but they were peaceful sounds.

His ears picked up when another noise interrupted all these others, sounding loud and clear to him. A man was making his way down the street, his footsteps unnaturally light, and then they stopped.

From what Sherwin could tell, he had stopped in front of their house. Unconsciously, his hackles raised and his teeth bared, the territorial habit deeply ingrained in his being making him aggressive at what he instinctively perceived as a threat. There was another sound, like the one of paper crumpling, and then a rock was thrown at his window and tapped against the glass.

Sherwin took a step back and growled. Whoever had thrown the rock was now running the opposite way down the street, the sound of their retreating footsteps loud as they slapped against the wet pavement. The rock had landed on his windowsill, the were-fox realised once he had calmed down, and it detached against the dark background as white, perfectly visible to him.

He opened the window and pulled the small stone in, and was not surprised to see that there was a piece of paper wrapped around it with a piece of string. Careful not to tear the soggy note, he pulled on the bootlace-knot, the stone falling away to reveal the message written on the other side in thick marker pen, the strokes bold and clearly spelling out the following message:

**COME TO THIS ADDRESS BY 1PM IF YOU DON’T WANT HIM TO BE MY NEXT PREY.**

Instinct took over then, or maybe his heart, he couldn’t be sure. All he knew now was that he was sprinting down the street on all fours, getting drenched in the rain, his second-floor window left wide open as the only thought consuming him from head to foot along with cold panic being something that could easily be resumed in a single word:

_Jonathan._

* * *

He woke up to a pounding headache and a horrible taste in his mouth. It was far from pleasant, and he had to wait several minutes before he found it in himself to open his eyes, but when he did he regretted it instantly.

Jonathan was in a cellar-like room, the only source of light coming from a small opening at the top of one of the walls that let the light from the full moon stream in. It was cold, unbearably so, and he shivered in his shirt (where had his vest gone? And his shoes, for that matter?). His arm didn’t feel right either, and when he looked up from where he was sitting on the floor, he saw that it was shackled to a ring set in the cellar wall. As his eyes got used to the low light he got more and more agitated, and when he remembered the last few events of the day, he came to the dreadful conclusion that he had been kidnapped.

There wasn’t much that really frightened him usually, but this was downright terrifying. He moved, the chain holding him to the wall chittering like an insect when he did so, and then he caught a movement in the corner of the cell (because this was a cell, no doubt about that) and froze.

Something was there, and it had gotten up and was getting closer to him, was going to step into the light at any instant. He couldn’t move any more, even his breath was paralysed in his lungs as he observed the wolf-man appear in front of him, unable to move like a rabbit in the yellow-glowing headlights of his eyes.

“Well well well,” the were said, and the gruff animal voice snapped the teen out of his trance and he forced himself to his feet, trying to make himself less vulnerable by taking on a higher stance. This wouldn’t have helped much, however, as the man was even taller than his mother, having to bow his head in order to fit under the ceiling.

“Wh-what do you want?” he asked, and it was the first time in his life that his voice faltered on a word, showing his vulnerability under the strong intent of the question.

The were chuckled, a sound that raised goosebumps on Jonathan’s arms. “You haven’t figured it out yet? Maybe you’re not as smart as everyone says you are, boy,” he taunted, the words coming out mashed and distorted, the wolf’s muzzle definitely _not_ designed to accommodate human speech.

“You’re here for Sherwin, aren’t you?” he tried, glad that his voice didn’t fail him this time. “Why did you kidnap me, then? I’m not the one you’re after, am I?” he asked, wincing at how self-centred his question sounded. It wasn’t the case, of course he preferred to take Sherwin’s place if he had the choice between him and himself being in a situation like this (why was he suddenly so self-sacrificial?), but he didn’t understand the logic behind it. Even in times like this, his mind took over and tried to make sense of things, even though in this case it wasn’t going to help him much.

The wolf-man looked away from him towards the light of the moon streaming in through the cell’s small opening to the outside. His face bathed in it for a second, rays reflecting off every single rough hair that composed his fur, before he spoke again:

“Tell me, Jonathan,” he asked, and his name sounded like rocks being chewed between his jagged teeth. “For how long do you think I’ve been observing the fox cub?”

The fox cub. That could only be Sherwin.

“Three months,” he growled, not even waiting for the boy to give him his guess. “For three months, I’ve been biding my time, waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect occasion to slit his scrawny throat and tear him limb from limb. And do you know why I waited for so long?”

This time, the wolf-man turned to him and came up close, very close, his breath burning his face as he looked him straight into his eyes. A string of drool fell onto his bare hand, and Jonathan shivered at the difference in temperature, now terrified to the point of all the little details being heightened.

“Because I was waiting for something important to him to show up, to engage contact with him and get his hopes up so that I could have more fun tearing all of that away from him; and I have to say, I’m not disappointed.”

He pulled away, and the boy breathed in, only just noticing that he had been holding his breath. His mind wasn’t working properly, he didn’t understand.

“What is it, then? What does this weakness have to have with me?” he whispered in the half-breath he held in his lungs.

He jumped and pulled into himself at the uproarious laughter that immediately filled the chamber, more of a roar than anything else and not helping with his headache in the slightest.

“You mean that you haven’t noticed yet? I can’t believe it, are you really that short-sighted? Can’t you tell how much he’s fallen for you?”

His mouth went dry and his mind blank. He must have misheard that, there was no way that what he had heard was possible (No. No, no, no. It couldn’t be true.).

“You really are a dumb one, I see. Anyway, you’re the bait. You’re going to make the hunt much more fun, you wait and see.”

The words took longer to register than they should have, still crushed as he was under the weight of the revelation he had just been subjected to, but when they finally did get to his brain he was sent into another pit of reeling despair.

There had been something odd with Sherwin’s story, and that was that he had mentioned how much in control his biter could be of his were form. But why had he bitten Sherwin in the first place, all those years ago, even though he had proved that he could easily control himself and not have done so?

This man was no man. This was a wolf, through and through, a hunter. And one who did so for fun at that, more human in those terms than in any other description. He knew he was stronger than his prey, and played with them, wished to see them suffer over years, whilst also allowing them the vague glimmer of hope that was that dusty old Gaelic legend that a wolf could be cured by killing their hunter. And anything else that could possibly be hurtful to tear away, obviously.

He had heard of such things before, but it was only now that he was at the mercy of such a deranged person that Jonathan understood the full extent of this cruelty. And currently, he could do nothing to counter it.

“Ah, I think I hear him coming. Can you feel his heartbeats from here? No, of course you can’t, you don’t have a fraction of the senses that I’ve got.”

There was a silence filled only with Jonathan’s stuttered breathing, but then the were turned slowly his way, a grin deforming his muzzle and showing row after row of needle-sharp, yellowing teeth.

“How about I show you what it’s like, then?”

He was going to be bitten. That simple realisation ran through his body like electricity, forcing him into a panicked state. He tried to flee, tugging on the handcuffs attaching him to the wall, but he only managing to cut through his wrist. The wolf-man was getting closer, he couldn’t see him but he could feel his presence, and there was nothing he could do to get away from him, he was going to die here and…

A crash, then a roar echoed through the cell, not as strong or as deep as the one that the wolf-man had issued before, but full of rage and desperation. Jonathan and his kidnapper turned to see the were standing in the door. His fur, a bright red with lighter patches seemed to be the only thing that reflected colour in the cell, like a flame in a moonless night, and was in that moment the most breathtaking thing he had ever seen. Like the other were, Sherwin was standing on two legs, but he didn’t stand tall as he did, panting and wet from the downpour outside (it had been raining. Jonathan hadn’t noticed until then, too focused on not getting eaten, probably). He stood in the doorway, trembling and unsure, looking absolutely terrified from his wild eyes and whatever glimpse of an expression Jonathan could see under the canine face.

“Your choice, cub. I either tear you to shreds here and now, or I bite this kid’s head off. You’ve got five seconds.”

Jonathan wanted to say something, he really did. He realised now that he would not die unhappy if it meant Sherwin could get away, and he wanted him to know that.

“Run!”

He had shouted, and it cut through the silence of the room like a whip. Sherwin jumped, looked about to go, hesitating, but then did something no one expected: he launched himself at the wolf-man, dodged his maw by mere inches, bolted between his front legs to finally get to Jonathan, and in the same movement biting down hard on the chain of the handcuffs.

The sound of teeth and metal breaking was lost to the roar of the enraged were, who immediately threw Sherwin against the far wall of the cell where he collided with a yelp against the moist stone, left to slide down and pant on the floor.

But now Jonathan was free to move, and even though he remembered his words from a few day ago (had it really been only that long?), the ones he had told Ingrid, “Karate can’t do much against a flick knife” (or razor-sharp claws and teeth in this case), now he could see that when desperate times called certain rules had to be forgone.

He managed to get his stance ready just in time to flip the beast that came charging at him, the huge mass difficult to manoeuvre but falling heavily when he managed to finish the movement. That had been more like aikido than karate, but it didn’t make much difference in the immediate. Right now, what was important was to find the right move to get the rapidly recovering wolf-man out of the way for long enough so that Sherwin and him could both get to the door and escape.

This time, the were was more careful, Sherwin having recovered enough to come closer and snap at his heels while Jonathan prepared his stance for the next attack. It came from above this time, the were’s body arcing up before coming down with enormous strength on the standing boy.

Jonathan hadn’t expected it, and even though he tried to block the hit with his arms, an intense pain shot through his shoulder and he cried out, the weight of the entire creature too much for him to handle. The wolf-man was quickly flipped over and out of the way, but he didn’t make another move to attack, simply watching the scene from his corner with that wide, maniac wolf-smile.

“ ’onathan!” shouted the were-fox, words mangled by the mouth injury and lack of practice. At first Jonathan didn’t know why his name was being called. He felt fine, good even, adrenaline flowing through his veins more freely than he had ever felt it before. Then, he looked at his right shoulder.

His shirt, previously white and perfectly ironed just like his mother liked it, was now torn, shredded from his neck down to his mid-arm. Tooth marks, glistening with blood and large, blooming bruises were forming in a half-circle, his shirt and skin darkening as the blood flowed.

But the most terrifying was that he felt no pain.

“Do you remember, fox cub?” came the booming voice of the werewolf. “Do you remember how it felt? At first, there’s nothing, and then you turn for the first time. Of course, if the moon is high you turn quickly and completely, but it burns, doesn’t it, fox cub? It burns like hellfire. How long did it take you to turn, fox cub? Two minutes, three maybe? And the moon wasn’t even full that evening, it had been waning for two days already. How long do you think it’ll take for your boyfriend to turn? A minute? Thirty seconds?...”

The rest of the taunting was lost to Jonathan as the sensations that had just been described took over him. It was nearly instantaneous, in a second the adrenaline had turned to magma and he doubled over in pain, not even having enough strength to cry out. What he knew had lasted only a few seconds felt like hours, but then it was over, and nothing remained apart from a boiling rage, his human self only being allowed a few snippets, a few seconds of broadcast from the senses between the moments of unconsciousness in which his spirit slipped, leaving only the wild beast in control of his body.

Pain. The pain in his shoulder is intense. He could feel the life-blood flowing out of him in great rivers. It made him angry.

Red. A red figure, cowering in the corner of his territory. DON’T TOUCH shouted his human self.

Fear. Fear on the face of the one who had inflicted him pain; he knew.

Snapping. Something snapping under his weight, breaking under the pressure of his jaws.

Then, nothing.

* * *

When he next awoke, Jonathan’s first thought was _How many classes have I missed?_

The next thing he knew, he was dry heaving, the dinner he had never even eaten refusing to be thrown up.

Once his stomach had calmed down a little and the pounding in his head had taken on a more bearable pace, he managed to get a look around the darkened room he was currently lying in.

The first thing he saw were two figures sitting at his bedside, their heads bowed as they slept in their upright position. One was taller than the other, and their arms were resting on the sheets of his bed, holding each other’s hand.

Even when they were worried sick about their son, and so to the point of passing out from exhaustion at his bedside, they still had problems abstracting themselves from each other. After all these years, it was only now that Jonathan finally understood a fraction of what they felt for each other. A lump formed in his throat. And he knew how that realisation had come about.

A quick glance at the rest of the room confirmed what he had first thought: the whiteness, the smell of disinfectant, the IV by his side and connected to his arm, and of course the flowers. Bouquet after bouquet of flowers, with their respective ‘Get well!’ cards.

His eyes wandered from the dulled bright colours to his other arm, the right one, and stopped on the white bandage wound tightly over his whole shoulder. He tried moving his hand, but winced when pain shot through his entire side. Carefully, he tried different movements, moving individual fingers and fisting his hand, trying to determine how much he could do exactly.

The simple exercise left him exhausted, and maybe because of whatever was in the drip, he slowly slipped into a more peaceful state, even though images of blood and fangs followed him until he was well and truly asleep.

* * *

The second time he woke up, no one was present in the room. It was lighter this time, the dull sunrays that had been coming through the window now showing in greater detail the beauty of the plants that decorated every available surface.

Jonathan didn’t feel like throwing up this time. On the contrary, he was ravenous. He carefully looked around, trying to see whether there was a call button next to his bed without disturbing either of his sore arms. Of course, it was situated on his right side, a place that he would have problems getting to without further hurting himself, so he simply abandoned and slumped back against the pillows laid out behind his head.

Soon, he fell into a light slumber, unable to get back to sleep but still tired. He had only closed his eyes for a few seconds however before he sat straight up, eyes wide and not a single trace of tiredness left on his face as a wave of panic crashed down on him. Disregarding the needle in his left arm and the bandage on his right, he twisted around and reached out for the button to call the nurse, just managing to reach it with his better arm, but pulling on the IV when he did, sending a sharp pain shooting up the restrained limb.

He waited in trepidation, praying for a doctor or a nurse or _anyone_ to appear in that doorway. In the end, it took ten minutes for the door to click open, revealing a man in a white coat.

“Hello? Sir, please...”

“Oh good, you’re awake. I’ll call a doctor, just wait for a second.”

“No, wait!”

The nurse stopped as he was about to exit through the door, listening.

“Is Sherwin all right? Sherwin Payne? Is he here?” he asked, twisting the thin hospital sheets between his fingers.

The man sighed and pinched his brow, looking stressed and tired from all-nighters. “I don’t know. The only people who have come to visit you from outside the hospital are your parents, and I wasn’t there when you were first admitted here, so I don’t know if anyone else was with you. Tell you what: ask your parents when they next come to visit you, they can check with administration and will be able to tell you that. Can I go and get a doctor to check up on you now?”

Jonathan nodded, a little disappointed that this man couldn’t help him more, but he could see that he was as exhausted as he felt. Soon, a plump woman with a badge reading ‘Dr. Maris’ barged through the door, pulling on gloves and a smile as she got closer to the bed.

“Hello Mr. Sharma,” she said, bringing out a small torch and holding one of Jonathan’s eyes open as she did so, shining the light directly into his pupil and blinding him a little. “How was your sleep then?”

“Er, good? How long was I out for?” he asked as she poked and prodded him in various places.

“About two days. We’re Monday today,” she informed him, even though her attention was now elsewhere. “Close your hand around mine, I want to judge your grip.”

He did so. “Do you know whether a certain Sherwin has been accepted into the hospital, or has some to visit me?”

“I’m not sure. If he is here, either he isn’t in this ward or he isn’t a patient.”

“He has a red Mohawk,” Jonathan added as she jotted something down on a notepad.

“Ah yes, punk hairstyle and a lot of body hair? Yes, he isn’t the kind of person that you forget quickly,” she chuckled. “He was brought in yesterday evening with a lot of broken teeth and light concussion. I think he must have been operated on this morning for his jaw, he’ll probably be allowed to walk around by tomorrow or the day after.”

“Thank you,” the boy replied, relieved now that he knew that Sherwin was in good hands.

The doctor was about to leave the room, but she turned around at the last moment and said: “Oh, by the way, they found the dog that bit you. It was found dead in the cellar of an abandoned building. We think that there was some illegal fighting going on there, it appeared to have been savaged by another animal.”

His head was reeling at the mention of this, all the memories coming back to him in a huge wave, but he let nothing show and simply smiled at her. “Thank you. I hope they catch those people, having such dangerous animals run loose can only cause more trouble.”

“I agree completely. Anyway, I’ve got other people to attend to, so I’ll see you later! Just call Gavin with the button if you need something, he’s rather busy but that’s what he’s paid for anyway.”

“Oh, one last thing! Could I maybe have something to eat?”

She looked thoughtful for a second, before shrugging. “Yes, if you feel up to it. Those meds can make you feel a little queasy, so be careful. I’ll pass by Gavin on the way out and tell him to bring you something, all right? I’ll be off now, bye!”

“Goodbye, Doctor Maris.”

The door clicked back into place and Jonathan let out a sigh, the memories from Friday coming back to him and everything they implied flooding his brain and giving him no other choice than to analyse them and make sense of them all, to organise them into a logical order.

The wolf-man was dead, and his body had been found and categorised as ‘animal’, even though he did have a rather ambiguous appearance. He had somehow been brought to this hospital and had been treated as if he had been bitten by a dog.

His stomach dropped. He had been bitten. Did that mean he was a were now? No, that couldn’t be it… He had changed, that he was sure of. He couldn’t remember anything of that experience, but he remembered changing. That pain wasn’t something he was going to forget anytime soon.

Did that mean… he had been brought to the hospital as a were? Or…

He had been the one to kill the wolf-man. He was the ‘other animal’ that had savaged him.

One of his hands raised and he attempted to wipe his mouth because he remembered that there should be blood running from it. The sensation was still there, the one of tearing flesh with jaws that were no longer there, and suddenly he didn’t feel as hungry anymore.

Yes, somehow he had done it. The wolf-man was no more, but in that action that had rid Sherwin of his murderous stalker, he had also condemned him. The were-fox will remain such, unless there was another way to break the curse.

Remorse held Jonathan by the neck and he felt like he was going to start bawling. His feelings were messy, confused. He felt so strongly for Sherwin, stronger than anyone he had ever been attached to emotionally, and he had taken away his one chance to becoming normal again.

But there wasn’t only that. No matter how much he tried, he couldn’t stop thinking that the wolf-man was, at least originally, a man. He had murdered someone, he could remember tearing through his flesh, but the worst definitely was that he had _enjoyed_ it. There was the ecstasy of the hunt there, and for a second, he understood why he had put so much effort into making the two-year long hunt for Sherwin interesting. He understood what it was to be a predator.

It was sick. He was sick. (How was he going to live with himself now?)

There was a light knock on the door which Jonathan didn’t respond to, too immersed in his own thoughts for him to register it. It was only on the second series of knocks, more insistent, that he jolted and replied to them with a ‘come in!’.

The door opened a crack, not enough for him to see anything at first, but then it did so fully and he straightened when he saw who it was. Beatrice was standing in the doorway, looking at Jonathan with an unreadable expression on her face. She moved forward and closed the door behind her, then walked over to one of the two chairs that his parents had been seating in the first time he had awoken. She sat, not saying anything for a few minutes, simply looking at him with that same expression, as if she was trying to figure something out.

“Sherwin ran off Friday night. We were all worried about him, we weren’t sure why and how he had gone, but when he came back his face was smashed up he was carrying you. You were unconscious and you had been bitten, we could see that from your arm, but there was no sign of you turning. So of course, we knew that you had killed your biter.

“My brother couldn’t speak, his mouth was all mashed up, but of course we couldn’t get him any treatment until he turned back sufficiently so that the doctors didn’t get too suspicious. We filed the broken handcuff off your wrist and got you in an ambulance as fast as possible though, just giving the big dog excuse again.

“We tried to convince Sherwin to speak to us with a pen and paper, but he refused to for a few days; he was in a lot of pain and his were part was making him irrational and aggressive. And of course, he was worried.”

She looked at him pointedly at this, and Jonathan could feel himself slip further under the covers, ashamed.

“Anyway, yesterday we managed to get him to write down a few things. He didn’t tell us much apart from the fact that his biter was now dead and that there was no chance of him ever becoming fully human again.”

Jonathan looked down at his arms, uneasy. “Is that all?”

“No, there was one other thing. He didn’t use pens and paper for this, he scratched it into his cage’s concrete floor. Here, this serves better than an explanation.”

She took out her phone and opened the album, going to the most recent pictures. Carefully, she set the device on the bed, opened on one picture in particular.

There were no books in the cell this time. Instead, deep furrows spelled out the same words, over and over, maybe a hundred times in all.

“I’m sorry,” the boy whispered under his breath, reading out loud the words on the screen. “I...”

“It’s addressed to you, if that isn’t obvious enough,” she interrupted, but her brusqueness was excused. Her eyes glossed over, but in a blink they were dry again.

“Please speak to him as soon as you can. I think you’ve got a lot of things to say to each other.”

She then got up and exited without a word, letting the two new visitors come in in her stead.

“Jonathan! You’re awake!” said his father, rushing towards his bed but stopping short, remembering the bandages just in time not to hug him.

“Hi Dad. Hi Mum,” he said to each of his parents affectionately as they entered the room.

“How are you feeling? We just stopped the doctor on the way here and she said that fortunately, none of the main nerves were hit, but I just wanted to check with you anyway.”

“Well, it hurts but apart from that...”

His Dad got up from where he had been kneeling next to the bed, now frowning a little. “We talked to the young lady who found you and called the ambulance. She said that she had been walking home and saw you lying in the street, unconscious, in the rain. Do you remember anything of what happened to you?”

Now was the time to say the right things. He mustn’t go against Beatrice’s story, no matter what. Piecing together all the elements he had already, he started on his tale, trying to make it as believable as possible.

“I stayed at school a little longer than the other students, drinking tea and just chatting with Ingrid. As soon as I left however, I was hit in the back of the head with something and I must have passed out. I doubt that anyone saw it, there was virtually nobody at that time of day. After that, things get a bit fuzzy. I think I woke up in a cellar, and that’s where there were a couple of really big dogs and where one of them bit me. I managed to escape, but I think I might have passed out while running. As I said before, it got really fuzzy.”

They nodded their heads while he spoke, drinking in his words with concern on their faces.

“I think it would be a good idea to go to the police with this, Jonathan. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s dangerous and I wouldn’t want the same thing to happen to someone else. Is there really no more details? Did you see anyone when you escaped the cellar with the dogs in it, for example?”

“Mum,” Jonathan started, sighing. “I just told you everything I know. You can call the police if you want, but I doubt there’ll be much they can go on from my experience alone.”

“Well, at least we can try! Who knows, maybe they’ve had similar cases and a detail might be enough to get these criminals caught!”

Seeing that it was not going to be possible to deter his parents more than he had already, Jonathan stopped talking and let them get on with the conversation, that they were now having between themselves.

“Oh, and Jonathan? That lady who found you, she’s been ever so nice and has cooked a meal for you to replace the horrible hospital food that they serve here! And I brought some fresh fruit as well, just as you like them!”

And indeed, his Dad pulled several shiny apples from his pockets, followed by a Tupperware dish that he slid out of a plastic shopping bag. He was given a fork (he was going to have to use his left hand for everything until he healed up. This was going to be fun), and his father helpfully prised off the lid, revealing the meal underneath.

It was a pasta dish, brightly coloured with yellow and green peppers, but more importantly there wasn’t a single piece of meat in sight. Beatrice was more insightful than he had first thought.

He ate slowly, finding out soon enough that the doctor was indeed right in saying that the medication could be a little upsetting to his stomach, but he managed to down a good half of the dish before finally giving up. His parents left when the sun started to dim outside, and after a few hours of tossing he managed to fall asleep, even though his night was restless and punctuated with several cold-sweat awakenings.

* * *

“Good morning!”

Jonathan jolted awake, heart pounding a mile a minute as he tried to blink the sleep out of his eyes. He had been halfway through a particularly uncomfortable dream when the cheery nurse burst into the room, carrying a platter of toast and some other tasteless food. She didn’t seem to notice that she had just interrupted the teen’s sleep, setting down the meal quickly on the bedside table before hurrying off to the next room, on a tight schedule like everyone else here, it seemed.

He ate what he could, then waited. There was no point in trying to get back to sleep now, even though he was tired, he was far from willing to going back to those nightmares. Besides, his shoulder was throbbing.

Jonathan then got up (he could walk around without a problem, he had to do so the day before anyway to get to the bathroom) to look at the cards and such that had been set out for him. A lot of them were from his usual group of friends, all with well-meaning messages but tired phrasings. Surprisingly, there was also a small bouquet of black orchids addressed to him from the punks, the card reading ‘We hope you come out of that hospital as brain-dead as us,’ followed by a small winking smily face. It made him happy that all these people had thought of him and had been kind enough as to send something even though they didn’t know him that well, he thought, but then he found the yellow flowers.

There was nothing particularly remarkable about them, maybe that they were a little more withered than the rest, but the hastily scribbled ‘Payne’ on the back of the card made him shiver in anticipation. He sat on one of the two chairs in the room, then turned the card over.

_We’re deeply sorry for everything that has happened to you, and we hope that you’ll heal up well without any unwanted complications._

_P.S.: Thank you for helping our son out. We’re sure that he’ll be sleeping better from now on._

The simple message would have seemed fairly normal to anyone reading it, but to him there was an extra layer to every word, a double-meaning that acted as a secret message that only he and the writer could comprehend.

And of course there was the post-scriptum. They were talking about Sherwin obviously, and the fact that he had rid him of one of the things that had been haunting him for over two years, but for some reason Jonathan was reminded of the time, a few days ago, when they had been watching that old black-and-white film, and Beatrice’s subsequent speech. Did they think… that Sherwin falling asleep on his shoulder was going to become something regular?

His feelings towards this were mixed. On one hand, it did sound incredibly enticing. There was something that he couldn’t quite grasp, something he had glimpsed that one evening when he had seen the constellations on his skin. A wholeness, perhaps (or was it a need?). On the other hand, however… He didn’t deserve it. He had condemned him, and should be punished rather than being allowed to frequent him any more. But also, there was a part of him which was scared. For years, he had strived towards perfection, pushed by his mother at times, but also partly of his own will. He managed it without much effort, fortunately, and was indeed regarded as a saint at school as well as anywhere else where he wished to set foot. It was the game he had always played, and he knew that showing interest in Sherwin would change the rules.

He was nothing more than an egocentric coward.

And a murderer to boot.

How pathetic.

* * *

It was with his head in his hands and surrounded by discarded greeting cards that Sherwin found Jonathan, looking as miserable as ever. The door mustn’t have made enough noise to announce his presence, so he knocked on the frame instead. Jonathan lifted his eyes, those perfect, sky-blue eyes to look at him, and he froze, unable to move from where he was standing next to the door frame.

“You can come in, you know,” he invited, pulling the chair he had behind him around with his left hand. There was a small white plaster on his skin where the IV had been inserted, the only apparent blemish apart from the faint bruise surrounding his wrist and the bandage holding his right shoulder in place. “Hey, you grew some sideburns while I was out for the count. Nice!”

Sherwin didn’t smile, he was incapable of doing so with his swollen jaw, but he felt his eyes crease in amusement. _It’s the only cool side-effect of transformation that I’ve discovered so far,_ he wrote on the small whiteboard he had been given to communicate with others. He showed it to Jonathan, who shook his head, laughing quietly. “Your brilliant sense of smell is pretty awesome as well.”

There was a silence, heavy with everything there was to say and write.

“So,” Jonathan started again. “For how long have you got the board for then?”

_Until my mouth heals up enough for me to speak again. It shouldn’t take as long as normal injuries._

“That’s cool… I’m allowed back home tomorrow, and then back to school a day or so after.”

_Same._

“Er… so how about the concussion?”

_I heard that you had one as well._

“Maybe, I didn’t ask. Whatever the case, I’m fine now.”

_That’s good to hear._

Another silence. That was when Sherwin decided that if no one took the first step, this wasn’t going to get anywhere, so he scribbled down something without thinking on his board and shoved it into Jonathan’s hands, before getting up and turning his back on him. He didn’t know what he had written, but he knew that whatever his heart had directed him to write, it had to be embarrassing.

“I really like you.”

He felt his heart stutter and stop, then start up again at a much faster pace. He turned to face Jonathan, slowly, scared of his reaction after having read out loud what had been written on the whiteboard.

At first, he thought that he had made a huge mistake. His face was blank, eyes looking right through the white plastic, not seeing it nor what written on it. Then they came up, slowly, before finally meeting Sherwin’s own.

“You’re crying,” he said in a slightly concerned tone, and raising his hand to touch his cheek, Sherwin found that it was indeed true.

“Here, don’t move, I’ll get a tissue for you,” Jonathan said, getting up and walking over to the side of his bed, pulling out a small packet of disposable paper handkerchief and taking one out. He came over to him and handed him the tissue, letting him wipe his face dry as he stood guard next to him. When he finished up, he bent down and gently took the wet piece of paper from him.

And then, unexpectedly, he left a light kiss on his forehead.

“So do I,” he whispered, before calmly sitting back down as if nothing had happened, leaving Sherwin to deal alone with his burning face and the renewed need to cry. He didn’t though. He managed to choke the tears of relief down and put on a brave face instead.

Jonathan gave him his whiteboard back, the four words quickly wiped out before he started writing on the board again.

_Do you remember what happened when you turned?_

If they got through all the hurtful stuff quickly, maybe they could get to spend more time together, just enjoying each other’s presence in a good way. That was the plan, anyway.

Jonathan shook his head. “No, I don’t. Well, I do, but...”

He visibly shivered, eyes darting to the side for a second before politely turning back to him. “I remember feeling… I mean, tearing through him.”

 _It_ , Sherwin wrote.

“No, him. I’m sorry, I can’t admit that he wasn’t human, at least a little.”

_You did the right thing. You were out of control anyway, and you saved me and who knows how many other victims._

“Yes, but I enjoyed it, all right? I shouldn’t have. I’m no better than him.”

For a second, Jonathan lost his cool, the fear he had been trying to hide showing on his face and in the defensive way he spoke. Sherwin didn’t know what to write, so yet again he let his heart speak for him.

_You didn’t hurt me though. I was the easiest target, but you chose the bigger one. You would have chosen me, then moved on to him afterwards if you really did enjoy killing._

“It doesn’t matter, I’ll probably never touch any kind of meat ever again anyway,” he sighed, his free hand moving to comb through his hair, dishevelled for once. His tired face shifted expression, his brow developing a small crease as he seemed to figure something out. Sherwin knew that look well by now.

“Sherwin… How did I do it? I mean, I mustn’t have been much bigger than you, how did I even have the physical strength to...”

As soon as he understood what Jonathan was getting at, he had started writing down his answer on the whiteboard, interrupting him by shoving it in his face as he had done before.

_You were not a fox, nor a wolf. You were a tiger._

“Oh...”

He took back the board and scribbled his thoughts on it nervously before he lost the courage to do so.

_You were a huge white tiger. You were terrifying, and when you saw me for a second I thought I was going to die. But your eyes were still blue, and I saw you in there for a second before you turned away._

His wrist was starting to hurt, he was writing so much so quickly, but he managed to get it all out in the end. Jonathan read through it, smirking when he finished.

“Sangetsuki.”

_I’m sorry?_

“It just reminds me of a short story I read once. Don’t worry about it. But the thing about the eyes… is that true?”

He didn’t need to write it down, he just nodded.

Nothing more was said from then on, and when Jonathan’s parents came in for their daily visit, they found the boys sitting in their respective chairs, in the same position as they had been in when their conversation had petered off, the only difference being that they were holding hands, closing the small space between them. Sherwin shot out of his seat, but couldn’t apologise properly as he was unable to speak for the time being, so he was left standing there awkwardly, looking desperately in Jonathan’s direction, silently asking for help.

“Er, hi Mum, Dad. This is Sherwin, he’s the classmate who I’ve been tutoring.”

They were like two cold statues, observing him with that judgemental look on their faces that adults took when they disapproved of him.

“Oh, so you’re our son’s crush, then,” Mrs. Sharma said, using that ever-innocent tone of voice that trademarked her mischief. Everyone stared at her and the kind smile now illuminating her face. She stepped forward and ruffled Sherwin’s hair gently, the boy too overwhelmed to object to the affectionate gesture. “Take good care of him, he can be a little reckless at times. And I hope you get better soon as well.”

He couldn’t help it. Too much was too much. He ran out of the room, leaving Jonathan to deal with this madwoman he called mother. A werewolf that had been haunting his dreams for years and had made him fall into an endless spiral of pain and paranoia, he could deal with. But not Jonathan’s family. Not quite yet.

Maybe in time, he will be able to. After they had both healed enough. After he had regained his speech, and he the use of his arm. Maybe then, they will be able to go against more scary things together. Maybe then, he would grow stronger, repay his debt in some way.

But right now, he could only wait patiently, comforted in the fact that now the future seemed a little brighter than it had before.

Yes, from now on, despite his regrets, he’ll allow himself to hope and trust.

And he felt, deep down, that his decision was the right one.

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is over.
> 
> I don’t actually like this fic. There are quite a few things wrong with it, I find it forced at times, and both main characters are wildly OOC (and the tropes! they’re everywhere). I wrote this on the spur of the moment (delaying posting for all my other stories while I was at it), and I really think it turned out pretty damn crap, if you ask me. Anyway, I might write an epilogue for it later, just to clear a few things up, but yet again I may not. I’m slightly disgusted by this AU that I was so proud of creating, but there it is.
> 
> For those who enjoyed this, I’m glad you did. Now go and read something of better quality.


End file.
